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the muscles had been cut by means of a surgical 

 instrument. The jaguar pursues the turtle quite 

 into the water, when it is not very deep. It 

 even digs up the eggs ; and together with the 

 crocodile, the herons, and the gallinazo vulture, 

 is the most cruel enemy of the little turtles 

 recently hatched. The island of Pararuma had 

 been so much infested with crocodiles the pre- 

 ceding year, during the harvest of eggs, that the 

 Indians in one night caught eighteen, of twelve 

 or fifteen feet long, by means of curved pieces of 

 iron, baited with the flesh of the manatee. Be- 

 side the beasts of the forest we have just named, 

 the wild Indians also do much damage to the 

 fabrication of the oil. Warned by the first 

 slight rains, which they call turtle rains (peje 

 canepori*), they hasten to the banks of the 

 Oroonoko, and kill with poisoned arrows the 

 turtles, as with the head raised, and the paws 

 extended, they warm themselves in the Sun. 



Though the little turtles (tortuguillos) may 

 have burst the shell of their egg during the day, 

 they are never seen to come out of the ground 

 but at night. The Indians assert, that the young 

 animal fears the heat of the Sun. They tried 

 also to show us, that when the tortuguillo is car- 

 ried in a bag to a distance from the shore, and 



* In the Tamanack language, from peje, a tortoise, and 

 canepo, rain. 



