Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The
Laying Of The Eggs Takes Place Always During The Night, And It Begins
Soon After Sunset.
With its hind feet, which are very long, and
furnished with crooked claws, the animal digs a hole of three feet in
diameter and two in depth.
These tortoises feel so pressing a desire
to lay their eggs, that some of them descend into holes that have been
dug by others, but which are not yet covered with earth. There they
deposit a new layer of eggs on that which has been recently laid. In
this tumultuous movement an immense number of eggs are broken. The
missionary showed us, by removing the sand in several places, that
this loss probably amounts to a fifth of the whole quantity. The yolk
of the broken eggs contributes, in drying, to cement the sand; and we
found very large concretions of grains of quartz and broken shells.
The number of animals working on the beach during the night is so
considerable, that day surprises many of them before the laying of
their eggs is terminated. They are then urged on by the double
necessity of depositing their eggs, and closing the holes they have
dug, that they may not be perceived by the jaguars. The tortoises that
thus remain too late are insensible to their own danger. They work in
the presence of the Indians, who visit the beach at a very early hour,
and who call them mad tortoises. Notwithstanding the rapidity of their
movements, they are then easily caught with the hand.
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