PELOMEDUSIDAE 



393 



and are accessible only by cutting roads through the dense 

 forest. 



" We found the two sentinels lodged in a corner of the praia, 

 where it commences at the foot of tlie towering forest-wall of 

 the island, having built for themselves a Little rancho with poles 

 and palm-leaves.. Great precautions are obliged to be taken to 

 avoid disturbing the sensitive turtles, who, previous to crawling 

 ashore to lay, assemble in great shoals off the sand-bank. The 

 men, during this time, take care not to show themselves, and 

 warn, off any fisherman who wishes to pass near the place. 



" I rose from my hammock by daylight, shivering with cold; a 

 praia, on account of the great radiation of heat in the night 

 from the sand, being towards the dawn the coldest place that 

 can be found in this climate. Cardozo and the men were 

 already up watching the turtles. The sentinels had erected for 

 this purpose a stage about fifty feet high, on a tall tree near 

 their station, the ascent to which w-as by a roughly made ladder 

 of woody lianas. They are enabled, by observing the turtles 

 from their watch-tower, to ascertain the date of successive 

 deposits of eggs, and thus guide the commandant in fixing the 

 time for the general invitation to the Ega people. 



" The turtles lay their eggs by night, leaving the water, when 

 nothing disturbs them, in vast crowds, and crawling to the 

 central and highest part of the praia. These places are, of 

 course, the last to go under water when, in unusually wet 

 seasons, the river rises before the eggs are hatched by the heat 

 of the sand. . . . The hours between midnight and dawn are 

 the busiest. The turtles excavate with their broad webbed paws 

 deep holes in the fine sand ; the first-comer, in each case, making 

 a pit about three feet deep, laying its eggs (about 120 in 

 number), and covering them with sand ; the next making its 

 deposit at the top of that of its predecessor, and so on until 

 every pit is full. The whole body of turtles frequenting a praia 

 does not finish laying in less than fourteen or fifteen days, even 

 when there is no interruption. When all have done, the area 

 (called by the Brazilians ' taboleiro ') over which they have exca- 

 vated is distinguishable from the rest of the praia only by signs 

 of the sand having been a little disturbed. 



" I mounted the sentinel's stage just in time to see the turtles 

 retreating to the water on the opposite side of the sand-bank, 



