( 
294 EEPTILES. [Chap. IX. 
of instinct at the period of breeding, it may be men- 
tioned that the identical tortoise is believed to return 
again and again to the same spot, notwithstanding that 
at each visit she may have to undergo a repetition of 
this torture. In the year 1826, a hawksbill turtle was 
taken near Hambangtotte, which bore a ring attached 
to one of its fins that had been placed there by a Dutch 
officer thirty years before, with a view to establish the 
fact of these recurring visits to the same beach. 1 
An opportunity is afforded on the sea-shore of Ceylon 
for observing a remarkable illustration of instinct in the 
turtle, when about to deposit its eggs. As if conscious 
that if she went and returned by one and the same line 
across the sandy beach, her hiding place would be dis- 
covered at its farthest extremity, she resorts to the ex- 
pedient of curving her course, so as to regain the sea by 
a different track ; and after depositing the eggs, burying 
them about eighteen inches deep, she carefully smoothes 
over the surface to render the precise spot indiscernible. 
The Singhalese, aware of this device, sound her line of 
march with a rod till they come upon the concealed 
nest. 
Snakes. — It is perhaps owing to the aversion excited by 
the ferocious expression and unusual action of serpents, 
combined with an instinctive dread of attack 2 , that ex- 
aggerated ideas prevail both as to their numbers in 
Ceylon, and the danger to be apprehended from en- 
countering them. The Singhalese profess to distinguish 
a great many kinds, of which they say not more than 
in boiling water to detach the ration.— -Journal Indian Archipel. 
plates. Dry heat is only resorted vol. iii. p. 227, 1849. 
to by the unskilful, who frequently 1 Bennett's Ceylon, $c., c. xxxiv. 
destroy the tortoise-shell in the ope- 2 Genesis iii. 15. 
