At last, I was obliged to restrain it by boring a hole in the edge of its shell, passing one end of a string through it, and fastening the other to a peg driven into the ground. At first, I tied the string to a brick, but the Tortoise was so strong that it dragged the brick about the garden, leaving reminiscences of its progress in the channels which it had cut through all kinds of vegetation with its scissor-like jaws. [Illustration: JAWS OF TURTLE.] [Illustration: SHEARS.] The reader, in comparing the illustration of the Turtle-jaws with that of the Shears, will see at once how exact is the analogy between the two. The sharp-edged jaws correspond with the blades of the shears, the joint at the skull corresponds with the pivot of the shears, and the muscles which move the jaws, but which could not be shown in the present illustration, are the prototypes of the handles. In some of these creatures, especially those which are carnivorous, the power of the jaw is tremendous. One of them, a Snapping Turtle, has been known to bite off several fingers of a man’s hand as easily as if they had been carrots. Some years ago I kept some Chicken Tortoises alive, and was much struck with the enormous proportionate power of their jaws. They were quite little creatures, only a few inches in length, but their appetites were astonishing, and their mode of satisfying their hunger remarkable. They were always ravenous after meat, and had a curious way of seizing their food in their mouths, placing one paw on either side of their jaws, and then pushing the meat forcibly away, so as to cut out a slice as large as their jaws. They were very good-tempered little things, but, small though they were, I should have been very sorry to have one of them take a bite at my finger by mistake. Knowing their general characteristics, I took care not to have any living creature in the same vessel. But I have heard, from those who have had practical experience, that Chicken Tortoises ought to be banished from any place wherein fish are kept, especially if they be gold fish, the Tortoise having a way of coming quietly beneath them, biting out a mouthful of their bodies, and then disappearing with its booty. * * * * * BESIDE the Tortoise, there are many creatures which possess natural shears, such as the Locust, whose ravages are only too notorious. Then, taking our own country, we have plenty of examples of insect shears. Such is to be found in the jaws of the Cockchafer larva, or “White Grub” as it is popularly called. It lives underground, and feeds chiefly on the roots of herbage, shredding them to pieces with its shear-like jaws. And, as it spends on the average three years in the one task of perpetual eating, the damage which it does can be easily imagined.