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 on a 

 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 days. "When all have done, the area or taboliero 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 friends," 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 horizontal 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 



