A Book of the Seasons: the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

A Book of the Seasons: the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures

completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

Has not the great world existed for them as much as for you?

August 28, 1856

March 20.  He [Agassiz]says that the Emys picta does not copulate till seven years old, and then does not lay till four years after copulation, or when eleven years old. March 20, 1857

March 27.  As I go up the Assabet, I see two Emys insculpta on the bank in the sun, and one picta. They are all rather sluggish, and I can paddle up and take them up. March 27, 1857

March 28. The Emys picta, now pretty numerous, when young and fresh, with smooth black scales without moss or other imperfection, unworn, and with claws perfectly sharp, is very handsome. When the scales are of this clear, though dull, black, the six middle ones, counting from side to side, are edged forward with broad dull greenish-yellow borders, the others with a narrow whitish border, and the singular vermilion and yellow marks of the marginal scales extend often on to the lateral scales. The concentric lines of growth are in distinguishable. The fore and hind legs and tail are slashed or streaked horizontally with broad clear vermilion and also a fine yellow line or two, answering to those on the hinge scales continued, showing the tenant to be one with the house he occupies. Beneath it is a clear buff. He who painted the tortoise thus, what were his designs? March 28, 1857 

March 29. By a pool southeast of Nathan Barrett's, see five or six painted turtles in the sun, – probably some were out yesterday, — and afterward, along a ditch just east of the pine hill near the river, a great many more, as many as twenty within a rod. I must have disturbed this afternoon one hundred at least. They have crawled out on to the grass on the sunny side of the ditches where there is a sheltering bank. I notice the scales of one all turning up on the edges. It is evident that great numbers lie buried in the mud of such ditches and mud-holes in the winter, for they have not yet been crawling over the meadows. Some have very broad yellow lines on the back; others are almost uniformly dark above. They hurry and tumble into the water at your approach, but several soon rise to the surface and just put their heads out to reconnoitre. Each trifling weed or clod is a serious impediment in their path, catching their flippers and causing them to tumble back. They never lightly skip over it. But then they have patience and perseverance, and plenty of time. The narrow edges of the ditches are almost paved in some places with their black and muddy backs. They seem to come out into the sun about the time the phoebe is heard over the water. March 29, 1858

March 31. The tortoises now quite commonly lie out sunning on the sedge or the bank. As you float gently down the stream, you hear a slight rustling and, looking up, see the dark shining back of a picta sliding off some little bed of straw-colored coarse sedge which is upheld by the button-bushes or willows above the surrounding water. They are very wary and, as I go up the Assabet, will come rolling and sliding down a rod or two, though they appear to have but just climbed up to that height.  March 31, 1857

March 31. The river is remarkably low, almost at summer level. I am not sure that I remember it so low at this season. Now, probably, these tortoises would always lie out in the sun at this season, if there were any bank at hand to lie on. Ordinarily at this season, the meadows being flooded, together with the pools and ditches in which the painted turtles lie, there is no bank exposed near their winter quarters for them to come out on, and I first noticed them underwater on the meadow. But this year it is but a step for them to the sunny bank, and the shores of the Assabet and of ditches are lined with them.  March 31, 1858

April 3. The river is remarkably low, quite down to summer level, and there is but very little water anywhere on the meadows.  . . . There, too,  are 08:19 painted turtles out, around on the banks and hummocks left by the ice. Their black and muddy backs shine afar in the sun, and though now fifteen to twenty rods off, I see through my glass that they are already alarmed, have their necks stretched out and are beginning to slip into the  water, where many heads are seen. . . .At what perhaps is called the Holt just below N. Barrett’s, many grackles and red-wings together flit along the willows by our side, or a little ahead, keeping up a great chattering, while countless painted turtles are as steadily rustling and dropping into the water from the willows, etc., just ahead. April 3, 1858

March 31. Many painted turtles out along a ditch in Moore's Swamp. These the first I have seen, the water is so high in the meadows. One drops into the water from some dead brush which lies in it, and leaves on the brush two of its scales. Perhaps the sun causes the loosened scales to curl up, and so helps the turtle to get rid of them. March 31, 1859

 April 14. The waves are breaking with violence on this shore, as on a sea-beach, and here is the first painted tortoise just east up by them and lying on his back amid the stones, in the most favorable position to display his bright-vermilion marks, as the waves still break over him. He makes no effort to turn himself back, probably being weary contending with the waves. A little further is another, also at the mercy of the waves, which greatly interfere with its staid and measured ways, its head helplessly wagging with every billow. Their scales are very clean and bright now. The only yellow I notice is about the head and upper part of the tail. The scales of the back are separated or bordered with a narrow greenish-yellow edging. April 14, 1856

April 21. Saw a painted turtle not two inches in diameter. This must be more than one year old.  April 21, 1855 

April 22. I walk along several brooks and ditches, and see a great many yellow-spotted turtles; several couples copulating. The uppermost invariably has a depressed sternum while the other’s is full. The Emys picta are evidently breeding also. See two apparently coupled on the shore. You see both kinds now in little brooks not more than a foot wide, slowly and awkwardly moving about one another. They can hardly make their way against the swift stream. I see one  E. picta   

holding on to a weed with one of its fore feet. Meanwhile a yellow-spotted turtle shoots swiftly down the stream, carried along by the current, and is soon out of sight. The E. picta are also quite common in the shallows on the river meadows. April 22, 1858

April 24. I find, on the southeast side of Lupine Hill, nearly four rods from the water and a dozen feet above its level, a young Emys picta, one and five eighths inches long and one and a half wide. I think it must have been hatched year before last. It was headed up-hill. Its rear above was already covered with some kind of green moss (?) or the like, which probably had adhered or grown to it in its winter quarters. April 24, 1856

April 24.  It is remarkable that I see many E. picta dead along the shore. April 24, 1858

May 1. Looking from Clamshell over Hosmer's meadow, about half covered with water, see hundreds of turtles, chiefly picta, now first lying out in numbers on the brown pieces of meadow which rise above the water. You see their black backs shine on these hummocks left by the ice, fifty to eighty rods off. They would rapidly tumble off if you went much nearer. This heat and stillness draws them up. It is remarkable how surely they are advertised of the first warm and still days, and in an hour or two are sure to spread themselves over the hummocks. There is to-day a general resurrection of them, and there they bask in the sun. It is their sabbath. At this distance, if you are on the lookout, especially with a glass, you can discover what numbers of them there are, but they are shy and will drop into the water on a near approach. All up and down our river meadows their backs are shining in the sun to-day. It is a turtle day.  May 1, 1859

May 7. The male yellow spotted and also wood turtle have very distinctly depressed sternums, but not so the male Emys picta that I have noticed.  May 7, 1858

May 10.  See twenty or thirty tortoises on one stump by stone bridge and more still within a rod along the bank of E. Wood's ditch. Now the Emys picta lie out in great numbers, this suddenly warm weather, and when you go along the road within a few rods they tumble in. The banks of some ditches look almost as if paved with them.  May 10, 1857

May 13.  I wade through the great Lee farm meadow. Many Emys picta which I see have perfectly fresh and clear black scales now. I can even see the outlines of the bony plates beneath impressed in the scales. These turtles abound now in the shallow pools in the meadows with grassy or weedy bottoms. I notice on one, part of whose rear marginal plate is broken, two small claw-like horny appendages on the skin, just over the tail. May 13, 1858

May 14.  Picked up, floating, an Emys picta, hatched last year. It is an inch and one twentieth long in the upper shell and agrees with Agassiz's description at that age. May 14, 1858

June 5. I now see a painted turtle in a rut, crossing a sandy road. They are now laying, then. When they get into a rut they find it rather difficult to get out, and, hearing a wagon coming, they draw in their heads, lie still, and are crushed.  June 5, 1858

June 10. A painted tortoise laying her eggs ten feet from the wheel-track on the Marlborough road. She paused at first, but I sat down within two feet, and she soon resumed her work. Had excavated a hollow about five inches wide and six long in the moistened sand, and cautiously, with long intervals, she continued her work, resting always on the same spot her fore feet, and never looking round, her eye shut all but a narrow slit. Whenever I moved, perhaps to brush off a mosquito, she paused. A wagon approached, rumbling afar off, and then there was a pause, till it had passed and long, long after, a tedious, naturlangsam pause of the slow-blooded creature, a sacrifice of time such as those animals are up to which slumber half a year and live for centuries. It was twenty minutes before I discovered that she was not making the hole but filling it up slowly, having laid her eggs. She drew the moistened sand under herself, scraping it along from behind with both feet brought together, the claws turned inward. In the long pauses the ants troubled her (as mosquitoes me) by running over her eyes, which made her snap or dart out her head suddenly, striking the shell. She did not dance on the sand, nor finish covering the hollow quite so carefully as the one observed last year. She went off suddenly (and quickly at first), with a slow but sure instinct through the wood toward the swamp.  June 10, 1856 

June 10. See a painted turtle digging her nest in the road at 5.45 P. M June 10, 1858

June 11. Saw a painted turtle on the gravelly bank just south of the bath-place, west side, and suspected that she had just laid (it was mid-afternoon). So, examining the ground, I found the surface covered with loose lichens, etc., about one foot behind her, and digging, found five eggs just laid one and a half or two inches deep, under one side. It is remarkable how firmly they are packed in the soil, rather hard to extract, though but just buried. I notice that turtles which have just commenced digging will void considerable water when you take them up. This they appear to have carried up to wet the ground with. June 11, 1858

June 16. 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.  June 16, 1855 

June 17. See a painted turtle digging at mid-afternoon. I have only to look at dry fields or banks near water to find the turtles laying there afternoons. June 17, 1858

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. June 18, 1855

June 22. Observe a painted turtle laying or digging at 5 P.M. She has not excavated any hole, but has already watered the ground, and, as usual when I take her up under these circumstances, passes more water. June 22, 1858

July 11.  The grass on the islets in those pools is much flattened in many places by the turtles, which lie out sunning on it. They tumble in before me, and by the sound and marks of one I suspect it a snap- turtle. They are commonly E. picta.  July 11, 1856

July 19. Examined painted tortoise eggs of June 10th. One of those great spider(?)-holes made there since then, close to the eggs. The eggs are large and rather pointed, methinks at the larger end. The young are half developed. July 19, 1856

August 19. See painted tortoise shedding scales, half off and loose. [Again Sept 10 and 15] August 19, 1855

August 28.  I open the painted tortoise nest of June 10th, and find a young turtle partly out of his shell. He is roundish and the sternum clear uniform pink. The marks on the sides are pink. The upper shell is fifteen sixteenths of an inch plus by thirteen sixteenths. He is already wonderfully strong and precocious. Though those eyes never saw the light before, he watches me very warily, even at a distance. With what vigor he crawls out of the hole I have made, over opposing weeds! He struggles in my fingers with great strength; has none of the tenderness of infancy. His whole snout is convex, and curved like a beak. Having attained the surface, he pauses and warily watches me. In the meanwhile another has put his head out of his shell, but I bury the latter up and leave them. 

. . .

June, July, and August, the tortoise eggs are hatching a few inches beneath the surface in sandy fields. You tell of active labors, of works of art, and wars the past summer; meanwhile the tortoise eggs underlie this turmoil. What events have transpired on the lit and airy surface three inches above them! Sumner knocked down; Kansas living an age of suspense. Think what is a summer to them! How many worthy men have died and had their funeral sermons preached since I saw the mother turtle bury her eggs here! They contained an undeveloped liquid then, they are now turtles. 

June, July, and August, — the livelong summer, — what are they with their heats and fevers but sufficient to hatch a tortoise in. Be not in haste; mind your private affairs. Consider the turtle. A whole summer — June, July, and August — is not too good nor too much to hatch a turtle in. 

Perchance you have worried yourself, despaired of the world, meditated the end of life, and all things seemed rushing to destruction; but nature has steadily and serenely advanced with a turtle's pace. 

The young turtle spends its infancy within its shell. It gets experience and learns the ways of the world through that wall. While it rests warily on the edge of its hole, rash schemes are undertaken by men and fail. Has not the tortoise also learned the true value of time? You go to India and back, and the turtle eggs in your field are still unhatched. French empires rise or fall, but the turtle is developed only so fast. 

What's a summer? Time for a turtle's eggs to hatch. So is the turtle developed, fitted to endure, for he outlives twenty French dynasties. One turtle knows several Napoleons. 

They have seen no berries, had no cares, yet has not the great world existed for them as much as for you?  August 28, 1856

August 31. A painted tortoise shedding its scales.  August 31, 1856 

September 3.   The river smooth, though full, with the autumn sheen on it, as on the leaves. I see painted tortoises with their entire backs covered with perfectly fresh clean black scales, such as no rubbing nor varnishing can produce, contrasting advantageously with brown and muddy ones. One little one floats past on a drifting pad which he partly sinks.  September 3, 1856

September 15. See many painted tortoise scales being shed, half erect on their backs. September 15, 1855 

September 22.  Many tortoise-scales about the river now. September 22, 1855

October 12. I see a painted tortoise still out on shore. Three of his back scales are partly turned up and show fresh black ones ready beneath. And now I see that the six main anterior scales have already been shed. They are fresh black and bare of moss. Is not this the only way they get rid of the moss, etc., which adhere to them? October 12, 1855 

November 1.  I see no painted tortoises out, and I think it is about a fortnight since I saw any. November 1, 1855.

November 7. I see a painted tortoise swimming under water, and to my surprise another afterward out on a willow trunk this dark day. It is long since I have seen one of any species except the insculpta. They must have begun to keep below and go into winter quarters about three weeks ago. November 7, 1855 

November 9.  See a painted tortoise and a wood tortoise in different places out on the bank still!  November 9, 1855

November 14.  A clear, bright, warm afternoon. A painted tortoise swimming under water and a wood tortoise out on the bank. November 14, 1855 

November 27.  Take a turn down the river.  A painted tortoise sinking to the bottom, and apparently tree sparrows along the shore. November 27, 1856

December 2. Measuring Little Goose Pond, I observed two painted tortoises moving about under the thin transparent ice. When I broke it with my fist over each in succession, it was stunned by the blow. I put them back through the hole; else they might have frozen outside. There was a brown leech spread broad and flat and roundish on the sternum of one, nearly an inch and a half across, apparently going to winter with it.  December 2, 1857

December 7. In a ditch near by, under ice half an inch thick, I saw a painted tortoise moving about. December 7, 1852 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,
 out-of-doors, in its own locality."

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2018