A wood turtle

June 28.

I see no tortoises laying nowadays, but I meet to-day with a wood tortoise which is eating the leaves of the early potentilla, and, soon after, another in Hosmer's sandy bank field north of Assabet Bridge, deliberately eating sorrel.

Its back is smooth and yellowish, - a venerable tortoise. It continues to eat when I am within a few feet, holding its head high and biting down at it, each time bringing away a piece of a leaf. When I come nearer, it at once draws in its head. When I move off, it withdraws into the woods.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 28, 1860

Another in Hosmer's sandy bank field north of Assabet Bridge, deliberately eating sorrel. See July 6, 1856 ("On the sandy bank opposite [the bath place], see a wood tortoise voraciously eating sorrel leaves, under my face.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,the Wood Turtle (Emys insculpta); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Wood Sorrel