154 REPTILES AND BIRDS. 
disturbing the turtles, which, previous to crawling ashore to lay, 
assemble in great shoals off the sand-bank. The men during this 
time take care to warn off any fishermen who attempt to pass near 
the place; for the passage of a boat, or the sight of a man, or a fire 
on the sand-bank, would prevent them laying their eggs, and if 
repeatedly disturbed, they would forsake the praia for some quieter 
place.” 
After a night spent under a temporary shed rapidly constructed 
for himself and companion, Mr. Bates rose from his hammock 
shivering with cold. 
‘Cardoza and the men were already watching the turtles ona 
stage erected on a tall tree fifty feet high ; from this watch-tower they 
are enabled to ascertain the place and date of successive deposits of 
eggs, and thus guide the commandant in fixing the time for his 
general invitation to the Ega people. The turtles lay their eggs 
during the night, leaving the water in vast crowds when all around is 
quiet, when they crawl to the central and highest part of the praia. 
The hours between midnight and dawn are those when the turtles 
excavate, with their broad, webbed paws, deep holes in the fine 
sand, the animal in each case making a pit about three feet deep; 
in this pit it lays its eggs, about 120 in number, covering them 
over with sand; then a second deposit is placed on the top of 
the first, and so on until the pit is full.” This goes on for about 
fourteen cays. ‘When all have done, the area or faboliero over 
which they have been digging is only distinguished from the rest of 
the praia by signs of the sand having been a little disturbed. 
“On rising I went to join my iriends,” he continues, “and few 
recollections of my Amazonian rambles are more vivid and agreeable 
than that of my walk over the white sea of sand on this cool 
morning. The sky was cloudless; the just-risen sun was hid behind 
the dense woods on Shimuni, but the long line of forest to the west 
on Baria, with its plumy decorations of palms, was lighted up with 
his yellow horizental rays. A faint chorus of singing-birds reached 
the ears from across the water, and flocks of gulls and plovers were 
calling plaintively over the swelling banks of the praia. Tracks of 
stray turtles were visible on the smooth white surface, two of which- 
had been caught, for stragglers from the main body are a lawful prize. 
“‘On arriving at the edge of the forest I mounted the sentinels’ 
stage just in time to see the turtles retreating to the water on the 
opposite side of the sand-bank. The sight was well worth the 
trouble of ascending. They were about a mile off, but the surface of 
the sand was blackened with the multitudes which were waddling 
