Evening star., 1935-11-23
STARS, MEN AND ATOMS
Notebook of Science Progress in Field,
Laboratory and Study.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

The box turtle, the kind that crawls
across the road in the path of automo-
biles, doesn't eat for six months after
it is born.
DR.. H. A. Allard. Department of Agri-
these reptiles for several years at his
home in Clarendon and made day-to-dsy
observations of their life habits.
The eggs, he found, are laid during
June and early July and the young make
their first appearance sometime in Oc-
tober. The alternating season, when the
whole colony digs itself into a pile of
loose sand or debris and goes to sleep
for the Winter, is fast approaching. The
newly Matched young do not eat-and
cannot be induced to eat even when
such tasty morsels as earthworms are
placed before them-and go into Winter
quarters with the others. Most of them,
if the Winter is not too severe. survive.
and emerge into the warm sunshine of
April desperately hungry.
DR.. Allard studies especially the egg
laying and feeding habits of his charges
which he confined in large wire pen.
He reports on his findings in the Scien-
tific Monthly. He was especially i'm
pressed with the intelligence shown by
the turtles, generally classified as low
order Of reptiles. He found them omni-
vorous feeders, especially fond of meat
and fruit. They soon learned to know
when food was being brought them and
would gather quickly from all parts OF
their range. They also learned to gather
whenever a tree containing their IA
vorite fruit was shaken.
Among the most interesting of his
observations were those dealing with the
digging of egg holes by the females-a
job always carried out at night and In a
precise, instructive fashion. The 60-odd
turtles kept by DR.. Allard were gathered
from the surrounding countryside, mostly
in poor condition. Many showed signs OF
having been run over by automobiles.
Others were half starved. He concluded
that the turtle has hard time to survive
in the midst of civilization.
For the most part, he found, they were
harmless, pacific creatures, but OCCASION
ally he witnessed some ferociouS fights
over food. In one instance, he says, Two
turtles eating from the same dish sud-
denly became enraged. Both quickly
adopted the characteristic fighting attl-
tude as they faced each other Each
lifted one front foot from the ground and
held himself as high as possible IN
rearing position on the remaining three
legs. At the same time they engaged
in a peculiar teetering motion. With
the quicknesS of lightning one struck SUD-
denly and savagely at the others head,
it's jaws catching its adversary's beak.
The attacked turtle retracted its head
instantly into its shell, breaking the
hold with loud snap.
1.-The big aggressive fellow now STOOD
high on three legs over its enemy-one
foot uplifted, the reptilelike neck out
stretched, waiting motiOnleSs with saw
age ferocity in its expression Tor tne
other to protrude its head again. This
turtle seemed well aware of the danger
and merely waited until its vicious
enemy was tired of the fray"
The coolest spot on earth is about 100
miles south of where it was supposed
to be.
Hitherto the so-called "cold pole" has
been located near the village OF Ver-
khoyansk on the Yana River in North
eastern Siberia. But report to the
Soviet Academy of Sciences, noted py
the journal of the American Geographic
Society, shows that the temperature goes
several degrees lower during the Wlnter
Mt Oimekon on the Indigirka River,
about $50 kilometers TO the soutnesss.