Johnny Jones, age 9, of Gary, Indiana, for his question:

Does a mother turtle nurse her young?

Mrs. Turtle is a very careless mother. She is a reptile and almost all the reptile animals lay eggs. Her eggs are round and white and the shells are not hard like a chicken's egg. They are covered with strong, bendable material, somewhat like plastic. A mother turtle buries her brood of eggs in the mud or in soft sand or perhaps in a pile of dirt and rotting leaves. She covers them over, then she waddles away and forgets all about them.

The eggs need warmth to help the unborn babies to develop. Mrs. Turtle hides them in a place where the sun will warm them in the ground. At last the babies are ready to hatch. One by one, they break out of their old shells. They look just like small copies of grown up turtles    and they know just what to do. The very first day they start off to make their own way in the world. Most of them never meet their mother    and if they did they would not know who she was.