!54 TRAVELS IN 
It is very remarkable that, when the waters 
are dried up by excelEve heat, the tortoifes, 
which always feek for moifture,bury themfelves 
under the earth in proportion as the furface 
of it becomes dry ; to find them, it is then 
fufficient to dig to a confiderable depth, in the 
fpot where they have concealed themfelves. 
They generally remain as if afleep ; and never 
awaken, or make their appearance, until the 
rainy feafon has fupplied the ponds and fmall 
lakes with water, on the borders of which 
they depofit their eggs, wher^ they continue 
expofed to the air; they are as large as thofe of 
a pigeon : they leave to the heat and the fun 
the care of hatching them. Thefe eggs have 
an excellent tafte ; the white, which never be- ' 
comes hard by the force of fire, preferves the 
tranlparency of a blueifh jelly. 
I do not know whether this inftinO: be com- 
mon to every fpecies of water tortoifes, and 
whether they all employ the fame means ; but 
this I can aiTert, that every time, during the 
great droughts, when I wifhed to procure any 
of them, by digging in thofe places where there 
liad been water, I always found as many as I 
fiad occafion for, 
Thi$ 
