IN FEATHERS AND FUR. 67 
These valuable creatures belong to the Reptile family. They 
are cold blooded and pass the winter in a state of torpor. 
On the Amazon, people have turtle ponds to preserve a stock 
of food for the wet season, as we have store-rooms and cellars to 
keep our provisions. Every bit of the creature is used. Steaks 
are cut from its breast, sausages are made from its stomach, soup 
from its entrails, and the rest of it is roasted in its own shell. 
Turtles are so important to the people in those countries that 
the government takes charge of the business of egg gathering. 
The river turtles make a business of laying their eggs, ccming 
down from the ponds above in crowds, to where there are sand 
islands, just suited to the hatching out of the little ones. 
Sentinels are placed to watch for the arrival of the anxious 
mothers and to see 'just where they put the eggs. The turtles 
come up in the night, dig deep holes in the sand, lay their eggs — 
more than a hundred at a time — cover them up nicely again, and 
waddle off to the water. This business occupies about two weeks, 
when they all tramp off to their homes further up the stream. 
When the time comes for gathering the eggs, everybody is 
invited to join the party, and hundreds of people go, armed with 
big kettles and earthen jars, to prepare and hold the oil which they 
get from the eggs. 
They build rude sheds of poles covered with palm leaves, ta 
keep off sun and rain. 
In the same country the natives — when suffering from thirst 
— kill a land tortoise and drink the water which they find in his 
reservoir. 
