Evening star., 1939-03-19
Just
Between
Ourselves
A Chat With the
Editor on This
And That
BY PHILIP H. LOVE,
Junior Star Editor.

Roger Young should be glad the
go turtles hibernating in his back
yard (see story at bottom of page)
are modern ones.
Several varieties of turtle are rep
resented in Rogers collection, but
all are what is known as land tor
toiseS. In prehistoric ages some
turtles of this type attained such
sizes that even the largest of Rog-
er's pets would look like a mere
midget in comparison.
Fossil bones dug up in various
parts of the world by scientists in
dicate that some of the ancestors
of Rogers tortoises had heads nearly
foot in length. And the heads,
these scientists point out, were small
in relation to the bodies!
The Galapagos Islands, of the
western coast Of Ecuador, were
named for the huge turtles that once
lived there. Some of these giants
survived until the latter part of the
10Th century, when the few that
remained were captured and distrib-
uted among geological collections in
various parts of North America and
Europe. They are being given the
best of care. and scientists believe
their race will continue.
Many huge tortoises in other parts
Of the Americas survived until his
toric times. only to be slaughtered
for food by the voyagers of the 18th
and 18th centuries. Those that were
not eaten by the earlier settlers were
shipped to Europe by the boatload.
And now, as result, only a few
captive specimens survive.
Rogers turtles are so small that
even the whole 60 of them are
able to tunnel under his yard with
out disturbing his parents rose
bushes. But imagine that neat lit
tie yard with few old-time tor
toises alternating in it; imagine
them crawling from their burrows
on the first day of spring.
Il guess 1t would be something
like an earthquake" said Roger.
Roger and his turtles were
brought to our attention by Mrs.
Isabel A. Thompson. 1884 Farragut
street NV. A substitute school
teacher and librarian; she learned
of the pets while conducting a class
of which their master was men,
Der. Jestingly. she suggested that
Roger try to make up for the failure
Of his turtle race of last summer
by matching his fastest pet against
hare this summer.
That wouldn't be fair" Roger
decided, unless the rabbit stopped
to eat grass or carrots or some
thing
Today The Junior Star welcomes
two new members Of It's staff of
high school correspondents-Mi Mildred
Sears of Roosevelt and Douglass
Daley of Central Both are jour-
nalism students, and both are set
on becoming professional newspaper
writer's as soon as they complete
their educations. Mildred is section
news editor of the Roosevelt Re-
porter, and Doug has contributed
several news stories and feature
articles to the Central Bulletin.
And speaking of high school cor
reSpondents-a few words of COM
mendation are in order for Jane
Phelps of Mckinley. Her story of
Roland Ford and his bees was
handled with unusual skill, consid-
ering her age and experience, and
we congratulate her. She, too, is
determined to enter journalism pro-
fessionally after Tech and the four
years of college to follow.
But getting back to spring-We
don't need to await the awakening
Of Rogers tortoises to be sure that
Old Man Winter is on his way out.
He may give us a few more slaps
before he goes, but the signs of
his early departure are all about
us. Tiny buds are appearing on
the trees, the grass is becoming
greener. the birds are beginning
to chirp happily as their number
increases, even baseballs, bats and
gloves are appearing here and there
AS far as We are concerned, how
ever, the surest sign of all is the
fact that so simple thing as the
salutation of a letter could make
us feel 20 years younger. The letter
was from an 11-year-old girl in
TakOma Park, Md, thanking us for
prize she won in the contributors
contest, and it began, Dear Phil