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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of suffering would have been prevented ; that prosperity which 

 we now enjoy would have commenced much sooner ; and our 

 present condition would have been one of far greater power, 

 wealth, happiness, and morality. . . . The moral course proves to 

 be the politic one." * 



HABITS OF THE BOX TORTOISE. 



By ALFRED GOLDSBOEOUGH MAYEE, M. E. 



WITH DRAWINGS BY THE AUTHOR. 



WHO has not been charmed by the many quaint and interest- 

 ing narratives of the habits of animals, left to us by that 

 father of English natural history Gilbert White ? The philoso- 

 pher vicar, far from the troubled world, among the peaceful beau- 

 ties of Selborne, devoted a long life to the study of nature. Among 

 his favorite pets was "the old tortoise" named Timothy; and 

 many a letter to the Honorable Daines Barrington gives minute 

 and careful descriptions of its peculiar actions and intelligence. 

 There is a joyful ring in the old gentleman's tone when he finds 

 the tortoise " distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched 

 with the feelings of gratitude " ; again, we find him lost in wonder 

 at its extreme old age ; or marveling that an animal so completely 

 protected should have such fear of rain as to crowd against the 

 stone wall and close itself up. Then the vicar's head bows sadly, 

 with the air of a melancholy Jacques, as he watches his pet's 

 amorous wanderings in early summer. 



Fig. 1. The Box Tortoise. (Side view.) 



In America we also have a land tortoise, whose ways and 

 modes of life are quite as interesting as those of White's Timothy. 

 It is a little creature not more than five and a half inches long 

 when full grown. No two individuals are marked alike. Before 



* Essays : Moral, Political, and Esthetic. 



