Mud turtles hatch

September 16.

Sophia and mother returned from Wachusett. S. saw much bayberry in Princeton. 

P. M. —To Fringed Gentian Meadow over Assabet and to Dugan Desert. 

I see a wood tortoise in the woods. Why is it there now? There have been a few slight frosts in some places. The clematis is feathered. One Asclepias Cornuti begun to discount. I see many hardhacks in the lichen pasture by Tommy Wheeler’s which are leafing out again conspicuously. 

I see little flocks of chip-birds along the roadside and on the apple trees, showing their light under sides when they rise. 

I find the mud turtle’s eggs at the Desert all hatched, one still left in the nest. As the eggs were laid the 7th of June, it makes about three months before they came out of the ground. The nest is full of sand and egg shells. I see no tracks of the old one. I take out the remaining one, and it begins slowly to crawl toward the brook about five rods distant.  It is so slow that I can not stop to watch it, and so carry it to within seven or eight inches of the water, turning its head inland. At length it puts out its head and legs, turns itself round, and crawls to the water.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 16, 1854

The eggs were laid the 7th . . . See June 7, 1854 ("A snapping turtle . . . had just been excavating.”)

At length it puts out its head and legs, turns itself round, and crawls to the water. See September 11, 1854 (“At length it put its head out far enough to see if the coast was clear, then, with its flippers, it turned itself toward the water”)