NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Lo Vaillant's acconul of tlic African tortoises. 



small lakes, with water, on the borders of which 

 they deposit their eggs, which are as large as 

 those of a pigeon : they leave to the heat and the 

 sun the care of hatching them. 



" These eggs have an excellent taste; the 

 white, which never becomes hard by the force. 

 of fire, preserves the transparency of a blueish 

 jelly. 



" I do not know whether this instinct be com- 

 mon to every species of water tortoises, and whe- 

 ther they all employ the same means; but this 

 1 can assert, that every time, during the great 

 droughts, when I wished to procure any of them, 

 by digging in those places where there had been 

 water, I always found as many as I had occa- 

 sion for. 



te This method of fishing, or whatever else it 

 may be called, was not new to me ; for at Suri- 

 nam, a stratagem of the same kind is employed 

 to catch two species of fish, which bury them- 

 selves also; and which are called, one the varappe, 

 and the other gorret" 



The account given by the Rev. Mr. White, of 

 the manners and habits of a domesticated tor- 

 toise in England, is highly interesting, and will 

 tend to illustrate the description of this animal. 



" A tortoise," says the above author, in his 

 History of Selborne, ' which had been kept 

 thirty years in a little walled court, retires under 

 ground about the middle of November, and 

 comes forth again about the middle of April: 

 1 



