Lovingly, then, we lay open the generous quarto and look upon its broad, bright title-page. It tells us that we have here the first of a series of "Contributions to the Natural History of the United States of America." We see that one of its three parts embraces the largest generalities of Natural Science, under the head of an "Essay on Classification." We see that the other two parts are devoted to the description and delineation of a single order of Reptilia,--the Testudinata, or "Turtles."
If Mr. Agassiz had intentionally chosen the simplest way of proving that he had naturalized himself in New England, he could not have selected more fortunately than he has done by adopting our word _Turtle_ to cover all the Testudinates. To an Englishman a turtle is a sea-monster, that for a brief space lies on his back and fights the air with his useless paddles in the bow-window of a provision-shop, bound eventually to Guildhall, there to feed Gog and Magog, or his worshippers, known as aldermen. For him a land-testudinate is a _tortoise_. When his poets and romancers speak of turtles, again, they commonly mean turtle-_doves_.
"Not half so swift the sailing falcon flies That drives a turtle through the liquid skies."
The only flight of a testudinate which we remember is that downward one of the unfortunate tortoise that cracked the bald crown of Aeschylus. But turtle, as embracing all chelonians, or, as liberal shepherds call it, "turkle," is unquestionably Cisatlantic. The distinguished naturalist has made himself an American citizen by adopting our own expression, and should have the freedom of all our cities presented to him in the shell of a box-TURTLE.
It is singular to recall the honors which have been bestowed on the testudinates from all antiquity. It was the sun-dried and sinew-strung shell of a tortoise that suggested the lyre to Mercury, as he walked by the shore of Nilus. It was on the back of a tortoise that the Indian sage placed his elephant which upheld the world. Under the _testudo_ the Roman legions swarmed into the walled cities of the _orbis terrarum_. And in that wise old fable which childhood learns, and age too often remembers, sorrowing, it was the tortoise that won the race against the swiftest of the smaller tribes, his competitor.