RIVER TORTOISES. I5I 
banks and islets, or on floating timber, from which they plunge 
into the water on the slightest noise. These Tortoises, which accom- 
modate themselves so perfectly to the element they inhabit, being 
voracious and active, are continually at war with the fishes, reptiles, 
molluscs, alligators, and other denizens of the rivers they inhabit. 
The carapace of the River Tortoise is soft, covered with a flexible 
cartilaginous skin resting on a greatly-depressed osseous disc; its 
upper surface is covered with shrivelled sinuosities. As they are 
destitute of scales these Tortoises are called “soft shelled ;” their 
flesh is much esteemed, and they are angled for with hook and 
line the bait being small fish, worms, or molluscs. When they 
seize their victim, or defend themselves, they dart out their head 
and long neck with great rapidity, biting sharply with their trenchant 
beak, and holding on till they have bitten out the piece. Persons 
wading have been known to lose toes from their bite. 
M. Lesueur states “that towards the beginning of May the 
females belonging to this division seek out sunny sandy spots on 
the river’s bank for the deposit of their eggs.” ‘‘ Their eggs are 
spherical, and more fragile than those of the Marsh Tortoise. They 
deposit from fifty to sixty at a time.” None of this group are found 
in Europe. The fresh-water lakes and rivers of the warmer regions— 
such as the Nile and the Niger, in Africa; the Mississippi, the Ohio, 
and the Amazon Rivers, in America; the Euphrates and the Ganges, 
in Asia—are its habitats. Among other remarkable species in the 
group we here represent Z7ionyx @gyptiacus (Fig. 37), supposed 
to be the ’Euis of Aristotle. 
No modern naturalist has done more to illustrate the habits 
of the fresh-water turtle than Mr. Bates, in his highly interest- 
ing work, ‘The Naturalist on the Amazon.” “The great fresh- 
water turtle of the Amazon or Orinoco grows,” he says, “to an 
immense size—a fully developed one measuring nearly three feet 
in length, by two in breadth, and in weight a load for the strongest 
Indian. Every house (in Ega) has a little pond called a corral 
or pen in the back-yard, to hold a stock of these animals through 
the season of dearth—the wet months. Those who have a number 
of Indians in their employ send them out for weeks, when the waters 
are low, to collect a stock, and those who have not purchase 
their supply—this is attended with some difficulty, however, as 
they are rarely offered for sale. The price of turtles, like that 
of other articles of food, has risen greatly since the introduction 
of. steam-vessels. ‘Thus, when I arrived, in 1850, a middle-sized 
tortoise could be bought for ninepence, but when I left, in 1859, 
