TERRAPIN, the popular name of sev eral species of fresh-water or tide-water tortoises forming the family Emydidx, distinguished by a horny beak, a shield covered with epidermic plates, and feet partly webbed. They are active in their habits, swimming well and moving with greater agility on land than the land tortoises. They are natives of tropical and warmer temperate countries, many being natives of North America. They feed on vegetables, fish, reptiles, and other aquatic animals. Their flesh is much esteemed. One species, called the salt-water terrapin (Malaclemys con centrica), is abundant in the salt-water marshes around Charlestown. The chicken tortoise (Emys reticularia), so river, making a circuit of the farm and returning to the river again. The bot tom of the crawls is on a level with the low tide and is covered with a layer of mud about six inches deep. Into this the terrapin burrow in winter and re main the best part of the time. Flood gates are at the opening of both crawls, so we can let in or out the water at will. Our average population of terra pin is about 40,000, one-half bulls and the other half heifers.
"The feeding of the terrapin is a puz zling thing. I have not yet found whether it is necessary for a terrapin to eat at all. Once I made an experiment and put. a number of terrapin in a separate crawl, kept them there for a year and gave them absolutely nothing to eat.
"One way of catching them, used in the salt marshes, is for the darkies to go tramping through the mud and water, sometimes up to their waists. If they pass any terrapin these will rise out of the mud to see what the disturbance is. I have agents all along the coast who collect from the darkies and fisher men in their territory all the terrapin that are caught. Then I make periodical
trips in a boat and bring them all in to the crawl. There they are fattened and kept till sold. Terrapin certainly named from its flavor, is also an es teemed American species.
In the United States terrapin have be come so scarce that "farms" have been started for their culture. One of these farms is at Beaulieu, Ga. P. M. Strong, the manager of this farm, in speaking of his farm and its inhabitants, says: "The terrapin is gradually disappearing. The Chesapeake Bay terrapin, that is so highly vaunted, has practically left us. There are very few of them now ob tainable, and the greater portion of the terrapin now eaten in Maryland are the black stocks from South Carolina. Our black stock are fast reaching this point, though we certainly hope to postpone the ultimate extinction for many a day yet.
"Our terrapin 'crawls' at Beaulieu pro duce more terrapin probably than any other crawl in the country. I think, by the way, that there is but one other, and that is on the Eastern Shore, near Crisfield. Our crawls are right on the river. The larger is 310 by 60 feet and is divided into three compartments for three sizes. The smaller crawl is for the baby terrapin and is 100 by 8 feet. Through both crawls there is a `trunk,' pr ditch, running, connected with the have as much sense as chickens, though no one would choose one for a pet. When the men go in to feed them they whistle, and terrapin from all over the crawl, thousands of them, come swim ming through the water, piling over each other in their efforts to get close to the man with the shrimp and crabs."