294 



REPTILES. 



[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 9 c. xxxiv. 



destroy the tortoise-shell in the ope- 2 Genesis iii. 15. 



