Turtle laying season

June 14. 

 I see near at hand two of those large yellow (and black) butterflies which I have probably seen nearly a month. They rest on the mud near a brook. Two and three quarters to three inches in alar extent; yellow with a broad black border, outside of which a row of small yellow spots; three or four black marks transversely to the fore wings, and two fine lines parallel with the body on the hinder (?) wings; a small and slender swallow tail with reddish brown and blue at the tail; body black above and yellow along the sides. (C. says it is the Papilio Turnus of Say.) 

At Dugan Desert many fresh turtle-tracks. They generally steer for some more elevated and perhaps bushy place. The tail makes ' a serpentine track, the tracks of the flippers and claws quite distinct, and you see where the turtle rested on its shell, flatting the sand, from time to time. 

You can easily trace one to where the sand has been disturbed, and dig up its eggs, as I did, - six eggs, about two and a half to three inches deep.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 14, 1860

Those large yellow (and black) butterflies. See May 28, 1855 ("Large yellow and black butterfly.");  June 3, 1859 ("A large yellow butterfly (somewhat Harris Papilio Asterias like but not black-winged) three and a half to four inches in expanse. Pale-yellow, the front wings crossed by three or four black bars; rear, or outer edge, of all wings widely bordered with black, and some yellow behind it; a short black tail to each hind one, with two blue spots in front of two red-brown ones on the tail. (P. Turnus ?)")

Fresh turtle-tracks. You can easily trace one to where the sand has been disturbed, and dig up its eggs. See June 14, 1853 ("On the Strawberry Hill on the further side of White Pond, about fifty feet above the pond and a dozen rods from it, found a painted tortoise laying her eggs. . . .. There were three eggs already laid, the top of them hardly two inches below the surface.")