M. F. Sumichrast on the Habits of some Mexican Reptiles. 503 
blows of a machete (a kind of sword) suffice to do the business ; 
in the opposite case, the Indian, with the patience characteristic 
of his race, will endeavour to gain possession of the unwilling 
animal by drawing it out gradually by the end of its tail. When 
once seized by the neck, the unfortunate Cyclura undergoes an 
operation which must deprive it of all power of resistance or 
hope of flight. With the point of a knife, the hunter cuts the 
skin of its cheeks along the upper jaw, and passes through this 
aperture the slender and flexible twig of a liana, which he then 
unites firmly beneath the chin, so as to prevent any movement 
of the lower jaw. This done, he half pulls off the last joint of 
the toes on both the fore feet, attaches one to the other by 
means of the tendon which is thus laid bare, and passes them 
behind the head. The same operation is repeated with the hind 
feet, which are also crossed upon the back. Thus garotted, the 
animal is unable to bite, scratch, or make its escape. 
The Jguane are also hunted either by the assistance of dogs 
trained to their pursuit, or by placing at the entrance of the 
holes into which they retire running loops attached to the 
flexible branch of a tree, which seize the animal by its neck as 
it issues from its burrow. 
In the western part of the isthmus of Tehuantepec, where I 
collected most of the facts detailed in these notes, only the eggs 
of the green Iguana are sought as food; the hunters, therefore, 
never capture the males of this species, to which they give the 
name of Garobos. The flesh of the Cyclura, on the contrary, is 
regarded as an excellent dish, and its eggs are much prized by 
the native gourmands. These eggs are nearly of the same size 
and form as those of the I. rhinolopha; their greatest diameter 
is about an inch and a quarter, and their smaller diameter four- 
fifths of an inch. In several females of the Cyclura which I 
dissected between the 15th and 20th of March, I found from 
thirty-two to thirty-four eggs, completely developed and placed 
end to end in the double oviduct which descends from the ovary 
to the cloaca. The ovary contained, besides, a nearly equal 
number of other eggs in a less advanced state; some of these 
were of an orange-yellow colour and of a flattened ellipsoidal 
form, presenting a lenticular inflation at the centre ; others were 
spherical, larger, and transparent, like those of frogs. 
During a voyage upon the river Goazacoalcos, I witnessed a 
singular operation performed upon afemale Iguana. One of the 
Indians who had the management of the canoe, having succeeded 
in capturing this reptile, opened its belly, carefully removed the 
eggs, and having sewn up the wound, let the animal go, “in the 
hope,” as he said, “of finding it again some day.” At the 
middle of March the green Iguanas begin depositing their eggs, 
