"Cardoza and the men were already watching the Turtles on a stage erected on a tall tree fifty feet high; from this watch-tower they are enabled to ascertain the place and date of successive deposits of eggs, and thus guide the commandant in fixing the time for his general invitation to the Ega people. The Turtles lay their eggs during the night, leaving the water in vast crowds when all around is quiet, when they crawl to the central and highest part of the praia. The hours between midnight and dawn are those when the Turtles excavate, with their broad, webbed paws, deep holes in the fine sand, the animal in each case making a pit about three feet deep; in this pit it lays its eggs, about a hundred and twenty in number, covering them over with sand; then a second deposit is placed on the top of the first, and so on until the pit is full." This goes on for about fourteen days. "When all have done, the area, or _taboliero_, over which they have been digging is only distinguished from the rest of the praia by signs of the sand having been a little disturbed. "On rising I went to join my friends," he continues, "and few recollections of my Amazonian rambles are more vivid and agreeable than that of my walk over the white sea of sand on this cool morning. The sky was cloudless; the just-risen sun was hid behind the dense woods on Shimuni, but the long line of forest to the west on Baria, with its plumy decorations of palms, was lighted up with his yellow horizontal rays. A faint chorus of singing-birds reached the ears from across the water, and flocks of Gulls and Plovers were calling plaintively over the swelling banks of the praia. Tracks of stray Turtles were visible on the smooth white surface, two of which had been caught, for stragglers from the main body are a lawful prize. "On arriving at the edge of the forest I mounted the sentinels' stage just in time to see the Turtles retreating to the water on the opposite side of the sand-bank. The sight was well worth the trouble of ascending. They were about a mile off, but the surface of the sand was blackened with the multitudes which were waddling towards the river; the margin of the praia was rather steep, and they all seemed to tumble head first down the declivity into the water."