at a high price, being immoderately esteemed by those epicures who consider a fricaseed frog preferable to a chicken. The eggs, which are spoken of as very agreeable in flavour, and which are constantly sought after in Surinam and Guiana, have common qualities with those of the Turtle, especially those taken from the gravid Turtle killed for the market;—a yolk that never boils hard, and a slight envelope of albumen that never whitens. They are described as being as large as, but a little longer than, pigeons’ eggs; equally thick at both ends, but soft, with powdery crystals of carbonate of lime, and therefore differing from the egg of the Alligator, which they resemble in shape, but which has a shell unusually thick and compact. They are found deposited in sand, some six dozen together.[1]
Goldsmith gives a very graphic description of the manner of pursuing and taking the Iguana as a pastime. From his speaking of the Mapou, the Colonial-French for the Eriodendron, or silk cotton-tree, it is probable he derived his account from Father Labat’s amusing notices of tropical natural history. After repeating that its flesh is considered the greatest delicacy of America, he represents the sportsmen of the tropics as going out to hunt this Lizard with the same sort of preparation for success that an English poacher makes for the seizure of the pheasant or the hare. “In the beginning of the season,” he says, “when the great floods of the tropical climates are passed
- ↑ At Aritaka, on the Essequibo, Schomburghk relates that south of the rapids, numerous sandbanks rising out of the water serve as a depository for the eggs of the Guana; in a very short time they took some hundreds.
