HARVEST OF TORTOISE EGOS. J 9;" 



and commence operations under the direction of tlie CHAP.xvir. 

 missionaries, who divide tlie egg-ground into portions. narv~T 

 The leading person among them first examines, by eggs. 

 means of a long pole or cane, how far the bed extends 

 and then allots the shares. The natives remove the 

 earth with their hands, gather up the eggs, and carry 

 them in baskets to the camp, where they throw them 

 into long wooden troughs filled with water. They are 

 next broken and stirred, and remain exposed to tlie sun, 

 until the yoke, which swims at the surface, has time to 

 inspissate, when it is taken off and boiled. The oil thus Mode of 

 obtained is limpid and destitute of smell, and is used for w-ikingoii. 

 lamps as well as for cooking. Tlie shores of the missions 

 of Uruana furnish 1000 botijas or jars annually, and 

 the three stations jointly may be supposed to furnish 

 6000. It requires 5000 eggs to fill a jar ; and if we 

 estimate at 100 or 116 the number which one tortoise 

 produces, and allow one-third to be broken at the time 

 of laying, we may presume that 830,000 of these animals 

 assemble every year, and lay 33,000,000 of eggs. This 

 calculation, however, is much below the truth. Many 

 of them lay only 60 or 70 ; great numbers of them again Number of 

 are devoured by jaguars ; the Indians take away a con- '"itoises. 

 siderable quantity to eat them dried in tlie sun, and 

 break nearly as many while gathering them ; and, 

 besides, the proportion that is hatched is such, tliat 

 Humboldt saw the whole shore near the encampment of 

 Uruana swarming with young ones. Moreover, all tlie 

 arraus do not assemble on the three shores of the en- 

 campments, but many lay elsewhere. The number 

 which annually deposite their eggs on the shores of the 

 Lower Orinoco may therefore be estimated at little 

 short of a million. The travellers were shown the shells 

 of large turtles which had been emptied by the jaguars. 

 These animals surprise them on the sand, and turn tliem 

 on their back in order to devour them at their ease : 

 they dig up the eggs also ; and, together with the 

 gallinazo-vulture and the herons destroy thousands of 

 their brood. 



