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The first three wall cases are devoted to the batrachian or Frog fossils; some of the chelonian or Tortoise fossils; and the fossil crocodiles. Fossil lizards are the most numerous of all fossil remains. Of these, including the fossil crocodiles, the visitor will notice specimens in the wall cases of this room, indicating the enormous size to which these extinct reptiles must have grown.
However, this is not the most general use to which the chelonian eggs are put in the provinces of Amazones and Para. The manufacture of "manteigna de tartaruga," or turtle butter, which will bear comparison with the best products of Normandy or Brittany, does not take less every year that from two hundred and fifty to three hundred millions of eggs.
In many places depressions or elevations gave witness to some tremendous power effecting the dislocation of strata. The glyptodon and armadillo are mammalian; the tortoise is a chelonian, a reptile, distinct classes of the animal kingdom; therefore the latter cannot be a representative of the former.
At intervals, the turtle-catcher would look to his line; and when the extra strain upon it proved that the remora was en rapport with a turtle, he would haul in, until the huge chelonian was brought within striking distance of his heavy club; and thus would the capture be effected.
And although our aldermen may sigh over a missing Chelonian, as Crassus for his deceased eel, or the first salmon of the season bring a fabulous price in the market, yet the time has long passed when the gratification of appetite is alone thought of in connection with Nature.
Herbert, wishing to surprise Pencroft, said nothing about the "superb specimen of a chelonian" which they had turned over on the sand; but, two hours later, he and Neb returned with the cart to the place where they had left it. The "superb specimen of a chelonian" was no longer there! Neb and Herbert stared at each other first; then they stared about them.
But these wall cases are mainly devoted to the exhibition of chelonian, or tortoise fossils, which are the highest class of fossil reptiles, except the serpents, and found only in the later or oolite formations of the earth. The regularity with which the various families of reptiles are discovered in the earth's strata, according to their order, is remarkable.
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