Amazon Turtles. 297 



cunning enough to know when it may do this with safety. 

 It lays its eggs (about twenty) some distance from the riv- 

 er bank, covering them with leaves and sticks. They are 

 larger than those of Guayaquil, or about four inches long, 

 of an elliptical shape, with a rough, calcareous shell. Ke- 

 gro venders sell them cooked in the streets of Para. 



Turtles are, perhaps, the most important product of the 

 Amazon, not excei^ting the pirarucii. The largest and most 

 abundant species is the Tortaruga grande. It measures, 

 when full grown, nearly three feet in length and two in 

 breadth, and has an oval, smooth, dark-colored shell. Ev- 

 ery house has a Httle pond (called currcil) in the back yard 

 to hold a stock of turtles through the wet season. It fur- 

 nishes the best meat on the Upper Amazon. We found it 

 very tender, palatable, and wholesome ; but Bates, w^ho was 

 obliged to live on it for years, says it is very cloying. Ev- 

 ery part of the creature is turned to account. The entrails 

 are made into soup ; sausages are made of the stomach ; 

 steaks are cut fi'om the breast ; and the rest is roasted in 

 the shelL* The turtle lays its eggs (generally between 

 midnight and dawn) on the central and highest part of the 

 plaias, or about a hundred feet fi'om the shore. The In- 

 dians say it will lay only where itself was hatched out. 

 With its hind flippers it digs a hole two or three feet deep, 

 and deposits from eighty to one hundred and sixty eggs 

 (Gibbon says from one hundred and fifty to two hundred). 

 These are covered with sand, and the next comer makes 

 another deposit on the top, and so on until the pit is full. 

 Egg -laying comes earlier on the Amazon than on the 

 ]!^apo, taking place in August and September. The traca- 

 ja, a smaller species, lays in July and August ; its eggs are 

 smaller and oval, but richer than those of the great turtles. 



* The natives have this notion about the land-tortoise, that by throwing it 

 three times over the head, the liver (the best part) will be enlai-ged. 



