Such clumsy animals

TCD MS 10516 folio 63 verso

TCD MS 10516 folio 63 verso

[12th October 1916] They were such clumsy animals, yet always so sly and vigilant that, if within reach of the water, they were most difficult to capture though they could not but provoke laughter in their ungainly efforts to escape.
Two species were very common, the Caspian Water Tortoise, Clemmys caspica and the Euphrates Soft-shelled tortoise, Trionyx euphraticus. The former is the more numerous; it is covered with hard shields and comes more frequently to the shore. It sometimes wanders far inland for I found one which in its rambles had tumbled into a support trench almost a mile from the river. Water-weeds attach themselves firmly to the shields of this tortoise so that the animal must take some part in the dispersal of plants. The Soft Shelled Tortoise is