176 0UR REPTILES. 



estimated, like the produce of a well-cultivated acre ; 

 an acre accurately measured, of 120 feet long and 

 30 wide, having been known to yield one hundred 

 jars of oil. The eggs when collected are thrown 

 into long troughs of water, and being broken and 

 stirred with shovels, they remain exposed to the sun 

 till the yolk, the oily part, is collected on the sur- 

 face, and has time to inspissate ; as fast as this oily 

 part is collected on the surface of the water, it is 

 taken off and boiled over a quick fire. This animal 

 oil, or " tortoise-grease," when prepared, is limpid, 

 inodorous, and scarcely yellow, and it is used, not 

 merely to burn in lamps, but in clressiDg victuals, to 

 which it imparts no disagreeable taste. It is not 

 easy, however, to produce oil of turtle's eggs quite 

 pure ; there is generally a putrid smell, owing to 

 the mixture of addled eggs. The total gathering of 

 the three shores between the junction of the Orinoco 

 with the Apure, where the collection of eggs is 

 annually made, is 5,000 jars, and it takes about 

 5,000 eggs to furnish one jar of oil.* By this one 

 means, therefore, in a single district, twenty-five 

 millions of turtles are prevented coming into exis- 

 tence every year ; or as many as would, when full 

 grown, cover eight square miles, as closely as they 

 could be placed to each other. 



* Simmonds' ''Curiosities of Food," p. 182. 



