Delayed by fog in night off coast of Maine.

July 20. 

To Boston on way to Maine Woods. 

At Natural History Library. 

Holbrook makes the Emys terrapin to be found from Rhode Island to Florida and South America. "The only Emys common to North and South America." So did not know it was found at New Bedford. Was not my Freetown turtle (vide April 13th) Holbrook's Kinosternon Pennsylvanicum? In his plate the edges of the scales are of more waving lines than those of the Sternothoerus; it has more brown or reddish yellow both above and below; its tail appears more sharply horny. There is no yellow line on its neck. The sternum is considerably larger (in proportion to carapax) as well as broader behind, and the plates connecting it with the upper shell are much wider. In the generic account the difference from the Sternothoerus is that the jaws are hooked (I see no difference in the plates) and the "sternum sub divided into three sections, anterior and posterior movable ; " and the " supplemental plates very large." Under this species he says the shell is "ecarinate;" "vertebral plates depressed, sub-imbricate." "Length of shell, 3 1/2 inches; breadth of shell, 2 inches 10 lines; elevation, 1 3/4 inches; length of sternum, 3 inches 2 lines." "The living animal has a slight odour of musk that is not disagreeable." Found in Atlantic States from Florida to latitude 41°. Thinks Hitchcock mistook it for Sternothoerus in his Geology. Found in the West, and Say says, high up the Missouri. 

According to De Kay, it is found sparingly in the southern counties of New York, and he says, "It has a strong musky smell." Of the Sternothoerus he says, "There appear to be two varieties, of which one is smooth on the shell, while the other is sub-carinate." Length of shell of Sternothoerus, 2 5/10 inches; height, 1 2/10; of Kinosternon, 4 and 8/10. (Vide April 13th.) 

De Kay does not describe the Cistuda Blandingii as found in New York. 

5 p. m. — Take cars for Portland. 

Very hot and dusty; as much need of a veil in the cars to exclude cinders as in the woods to keep off mosquitoes. Riding in the cars this weather like sitting in the flue of a chimney. 

Take steamer at Portland. Delayed by fog in night off coast of Maine.

H. D.Thoreau, Journal, July 20, 1857

De Kay: . James Dekay (October 12, 1792 – November 21, 1851) was an American zoologist involved with the Geological Survey of New York, wiho published the multi-volume Zoology of New York, or The New-York Fauna covering: mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians and fish -- the nearly 2,300 animals they estimated to exist in New York. This work was illustrated by  John William Hill. Hill and De Kay used a camera lucia for the rough drafts of the drawings. Hill's drawings of birds represented the first time hand-colored lithographs were used to illustrate a state bird book. De Kay collected the first specimen of a species of small brown snake on Long Island, which was named for him as Storeria dekayi. ~ Wikipedia

Was not my Freetown turtle (vide April 13th) Holbrook's Kinosternon Pennsylvanicum? See April 13, 1857 ("Saw a strange turtle, much like a small snapping turtle or very large Sternothoerus odoratus . . .")