66 MARVELS OF THE ANIMAL WORLD 



marine turtles, all resort to the land for the purpose 

 of laying their eggs. These are usually deposited 

 in a hole excavated out of the soil, and, after being 

 carefully covered up again, are left to hatch out 

 under the influence of the sun's rays. That tortoises 

 are not so unintelligent as they look may be judged 

 by the artifice they employ in order to remove all 

 external traces of their nests, for, with that end in 

 view, they will stamp upon the ground with their 

 feet, and even poise their bodies as high in the air 

 as their short limbs will allow and then drop down 

 suddenly and bring the under surface of their shells 

 into forcible contact with the underlying soil until 

 it is flattened out and rendered as level as the 

 surrounding parts. 



Of the vast number of lizards which populate 

 the earth we find that by far the greater majority 

 lay eggs. Some, however, such as our common 

 lizard, the slow-worm, and nearly all of the skinks 

 are viviparous, although, curiously enough, the 

 ocellated sand-skink, which usually brings forth 

 its young in an active condition, has also been 

 known to lay eggs. 



In a like manner to the lizards, the snakes 

 reproduce their kind by laying eggs and also by 

 giving birth to living young ones. Those which 

 favour the former method deposit their ova in a 

 heap of decaying vegetation and leave them to be 

 hatched out by the heat which generates therefrom, 

 or else incubate them by coiling their bodies around 

 them. As manv as one hundred eggs may be laid 

 at a * sitting/ according to the species of snake 



