The Carolina box-turtle. [Why should it be an emblem of intoxication?]
1827. A few jolly topers, who wallowed in the sand, “as drunk as a cooter.”—Mass. Spy, Aug. 22: from the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle.
1832. It was a large cooter, that incautiously, and in an evil hour for itself, rose to the surface, only a few feet distant.—‘Memoirs of a Nullifier,’ p. 40 (Columbia, S.C.).
1848. [The free negroes in Philadelphia,] many of ’em was diseased and bloated up like frogs, and lay sprawlin about like so many cooters in a mud-hole, with ther red eyes peepin out of ther dark rooms and cellars like lizards in a pile of rotten logs.—W. T. Thompson, ‘Major Jones’s Sketches of Travel,’ p. 104 (Phila.).
1851. He’s very fond of liquor, and I can manage to have him as drunk as a cooter by dark.—‘Polly Peablossom’s Wedding,’ &c., p. 45 (Phila.).
1853. “What ’u’d these darned cooters think,” said Nat, “if they could see us naow, jest as we air? Guess they’d think we was the flaower a’ the young men a’ Turnover.”—‘Turnover: a Tale of New Hampshire,’ p. 43 (Boston).
1858. You might as well set a Highland cooter—a terrapin in my country—to catch an antelope, as set a regular soldier to catch an Indian.—Mr. Toombs of Georgia, U.S. Senate, May 13: Cong. Globe, p. 357, App.
1859. It turns out to be a large ‘cooter,’ (which we take to be a sort of snapping-turtle) that incautiously, and in an evil hour for itself, rose to the surface, only a few feet from the boat.—Knick. Mag., liii. 413 (April).
