PELOMEDUSIDAE 395 



The egg, it may be here mentioned, has a flexible or leathery 

 shell ; it is quite round, and somewhat larger than a hen's egg. 

 The whole heap is thrown into an empty canoe and mashed 

 with wooden prongs ; but sometimes naked Indians and children 

 jump into the mass and tread it down, besmearing themselves 

 with yolk, and making about as filthy a scene as can well be 

 imagined. This being finished, water is poured into the canoe, 

 and the fatty mass is then left for a few hours to be heated by the 

 sun, on which the oil separates and rises to the surface. The 

 floating oil is afterwards skimmed off with long spoons, made by 

 tying large mussel-shells to the end of rods, and purified over 

 the fire in copper kettles. 



" The destruction of turtle eggs every year by these proceed- 

 ings is enormous. At least 6000 jars, holding each three 

 gallons of the oil, are exported annually from the Upper 

 Amazons and the Madeira to Para, where it is used for lighting, 

 frying fish, and other purposes. It may be fairly estimated 

 that 2000 more jarfuls are consumed by the inhabitants of the 

 villages on the river. Now, it takes twelve basketfuls of eggs, 

 or about 6000, by the wasteful process followed, to make one 

 jar of oil. The total number of eggs annually destroyed 

 amounts, therefore, to 48 millions. As each turtle lays about 

 120, it follows that the yearly offspring of 400,000 turtles is 

 thus annihilated. A vast number, nevertheless, remain unde- 

 tected ; and these would probably be sufficient to keep the 

 turtle population of these rivers up to the mark, if the people 

 did not follow the wasteful practice of lying in wait for the 

 newly-hatched young, and collecting them by thousands for 

 eating; their tender flesh, and the remains of yolk in their 

 entrails, being considered a great delicacy. The chief natural 

 enemies of the turtle are vultures and alligators, which devour 

 the newly-hatched young as they descend in shoals to the water. 

 These must have destroyed an immensely greater number before 

 the European settlers began to appropriate the eggs than they 

 do now. It is almost doubtful if this natural persecution did 

 not act as effectively in checking the increase of the turtle as 

 the artificial destruction now does. If we are to believe the 

 tradition of the Indians, however, it had not this result; for 

 they say that formerly the waters teemed as thickly with 

 turtles as the air does now with mosquitoes. The universal 



