A painted tortoise lays her eggs near the Leaning Hemlocks

June 18. 

At 3 P. M., as I walk up the bank by the Hemlocks, I see a painted tortoise just beginning its hole; then another a dozen rods from the river on the bare barren field near some pitch pines, where the earth was covered with cladonias, cinquefoil, sorrel, etc. 

Its hole is about two thirds done. I stoop down over it, and, to my surprise, after a slight pause it proceeds in its work, directly under and within eighteen inches of my face. 

I retain a constrained position for three quarters of an hour or more for fear of alarming it.  ...

... When it has done, it immediately starts for the river at a pretty rapid rate, pausing from time to time, and I judge that it would reach it in fifteen minutes. It is not easy to detect that the ground had been disturbed there.  In a few minutes all, traces of it will be lost to the eye.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  June 18, 1855

A painted tortoise lays her eggs near the Leaning Hemlocks. See  September 10, 1855 ("I can find no trace of the tortoise-eggs of June 18, though there is no trace of their having been disturbed by skunks. They must have been hatched earlier.") See also June 10, 1856  ("A painted tortoise laying her eggs ten feet from the wheel-track on the Marlborough road.”); June 10, 1858 ("See a painted turtle digging her nest in the road at 5.45 P. M.”) ;  June 16, 1855 ("A painted tortoise just burying three flesh-colored eggs in the dry, sandy plain near the thrasher’s nest. It leaves no trace on the surface. Find near by four more about this business. When seen they stop stock still in whatever position, and stir not nor make any noise, just as their shells may happen to be tilted up.”); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

June18.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 18