[ HO j 



FECUNDITY OF THB SEA TURTLE. 



[From ■ Travels in Brazil/ by Prince Maximilian, p. 190.] 



cc While our people were employed in fetching some sea- 

 water, and in picking up drift-wood on the beach, we found 

 to our great surprise, at a short distance from our fire, a pro- 

 digious sea-turtle ( Testudo My das, Linn .) which was justgoing 

 to deposit its eggs : nothing could be more welcome to our 

 hungry company ; the animal seemed to have come expressly 

 to provide us with a supper. Our presence did not disturb 

 it ; we could touch it, and even lift it up ; but to do this it 

 required the united strength of four men. Notwithstanding 

 all our exclamations of surprise and our deliberations what to 

 do with it, the creature manifested no sign of uneasiness but 

 a kind of hissing, nearly like the noise made by the geese when 

 any one approaches their young. It continued to work as it 

 had commenced, with its fin-like hinder feet, digging in the 

 sand a cylindrical hole from eight to twelve inches broad ; it 

 threw the earth very regularly and dexterously, and, as it were, 

 keeping time on both sides, and began immediately after to 

 deposit its eggs. 



" One of our two soldiers laid himself all along on the 

 ground near this purveyor of our kitchen, and took the eggs 

 out of the hole as fast as the turtle deposited them ; and in this 

 manner we collected a hundred eggs in about ten minutes. We 

 considered whether we should add this fine animal to our col- 

 lections ; but the great weight of the turtle, which would have 

 required a mule for itself alone, and the difficulty of loading 

 such an awkward burden, made us resolve to spare its life, 

 and to content ourselves with its eggs. 



" Those huge animals, the mydas and the soft-shelled tur- 

 tle {Testudo Mydas and coriacea), as well as the Testudo ca- 

 retta or cauamia, deposit their eggs in the sand in the warm- 

 est months of the year, particularly in this uninhabited part 

 of the coast, between the Riacho and the Mucuri; they come 

 on shore for this purpose in the evening twilight, drag their 

 heavy bodies up the sandy coast, dig a hole, in which they 

 deposit their eggs, fill it up with sand, which they tread down, 

 and an hour or two after sunset return to the sea. This was 

 the case with the turtle which had so amply supplied us; when 

 we came back to the strand a few hours afterwards, it was 

 gone ; it had filled up the hole, and the broad track left by it 

 in the sand, showed that it had returned to its proper element. 

 A single turtle of this kind can furnish an abundant repast 

 with its eggs for a whole company ; for the mydas is said to 

 lay at once ten or twelve dozen, and the soft-shelled from 



