B. V.] THE HISTOBY OF ANIMALS. 137 



The marine turtles deposit their eggs in the earth like do- 

 mestic birds, and cover them up with earth and sit upon them 

 during the night. They produce a great many eggs, as many 

 as an hundred. 



2. The saurians and both the land and river crocodiles 

 produce their eggs upon the land. Those of the lizards are 

 hatched spontaneously in the earth ; for the lizard does not 

 live a whole year, for it is said to live only six months. The 

 river crocodile produces as many as sixty eggs, which are 

 white. She sits upon them for sixty days, for they live a long 

 while. A very large animal is produced from these small 

 eggs ; for the egg is not larger than that of a goose, and the 

 young is in proportion, but when full grown the creature 

 measures seventeen cubits. Some persons say that it grows 

 as long as it lives. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



AMONG serpents the viper is externally viviparous, but first 

 of all internally oviparous. The ovum, like that of fish, is 

 of one colour and soft skinned. The young are produced 

 in the upper part. They are not enclosed in a shelly covering, 

 neither are the ova of fish. The little vipers are produced in 

 a membrane, which they rupture on the third day, and some- 

 times they make their escape by eating their way through 

 the mother. They are produced one by one in the course 

 of a day, and their number often exceeds twenty. Other 

 serpents are externally oviparous, but the.ir ova are joined 

 together like women's necklaces. When the female deposits 

 her eggs in the soil, she incubates upon them. These also 

 are hatched in the second year. This is the manner of the 

 production of serpents, insects, and of oviparous quadrupeds. 



