REPTILES AND THEIR PROGENY 163 



eggs was carried out with great system, and occupied 

 about two days. At the end of this time large mounds of 

 eggs, some of them four or five feet high, were formed by 

 the hut of each family of the natives encamped for the 

 harvest. 



Then began the work of smashing the eggs for the sake 

 of their oil. The whole heap was 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, 

 when it is skimmed off with long spoons made by tying 

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

 the fire in copper kettles. 



At least 6,000 jars holding each three gallons of oil were 

 annually exported to Para, to be used for lighting, frying 

 fish, and so on : and another 2,000 jarfuls were consumed 

 by the natives along the river. Bates estimated that at 

 least 6,000 eggs would be required to make one gallon of 

 oil, and that the total number of eggs annually destroyed 

 amounted to about 48,000,000. The yearly offspring 

 of some 400,000 turtles was thus annihilated. Small 

 wonder, then, can there be that over enormous areas these 

 turtles are now reduced almost to the verge of extinction ; 

 only in some of the less accessible parts of their old 

 haunts are these creatures still numerous. 



We are often reminded that where we meet with great 

 prolificness, there we also find a corresponding mortaUty, 

 and that therefore the prolificness is Nature's endowment 

 to enable a much persecuted species to maintain existence. 



