158 Short Commiinicaticnis : — 



the coast of Malaga in Spain, where he picked them up off 

 the sands. Your aunt must have received it in the autumn of 

 1826 or ]827, because she says that during the winter it used 

 to get under the grate. She used to put water or milk, with 

 soaked bread, in a plate for it ; but it is not certain that she 

 ever saw it take any thing. When I had received it, I, not 

 knowing better, treated it as a land tortoise. I put it, in the 

 day time, into the front garden (which is, from its aspect, the 

 warmer one), but, contrary to my expectation, I could not 

 perceive it take any vegetable food. I afterwards put it in 

 the back yard, whence it several times made its escape ; and 

 one day we considered we had lost it, until our dog traced it 

 to the pond in the yard, and assisted in the capture of it. We 

 then bored a hole in its shell, tied thereto a string, and to the 

 same string, at about a yard from the shell, fastened a float, 

 that we might capture the creature at any time. We regu- 

 larly, in an evening, brought it in-doors and put it in a basket. 

 When liberated, in the morning, it directly sought the pond : 

 so that, after we had half-starved it, it had found its element. 

 It was in the water that we first saw him feed on some 

 small pieces of lights which your mother threw into the 

 pond for it. Afterwards it became so familiar as to eat out 

 of your mother^s and sister's hands (it seemed to show an aver- 

 sion from men), and by its more healthy appearance, the 

 quickness of its motions [and it would, when obstructed in 

 front, travel backwards almost as fast as forwards], and by its 

 getting frequently out of the water upon a stone at the pond's 

 edge, to bask there in the heat of the sun, showed that it 

 enjoyed its existence. When winter approached, it was less 

 anxious to leave its basket. We then wrapped it up, and 

 placed it in its basket, in a warm situation, until the spring. 

 After keeping it through a part of the summer [of 1829], I 

 made a present of it to Mr. Arthur Biggs, the curator of the 

 Cambridge Botanic Garden, and took off its float, and put it 

 into the sheet of water [supplied by a slow stream that passes 

 through it], in which the aquatic plants are cultivated. Here 

 it gets its own living, and has remained, to the best of 

 Mr. Biggs's, and Mr. Scott the foreman's, knowledge, during 

 four winters. [The length of time which it remains wholly 

 unapparent (wherever it may hide) is not many weeks. Its 

 first appearance, in 1833, was on April 2.] In warm weather, 

 in the heat of the day, it either enjoys itself by sunning itself 

 on a stone step at one end of the water, or on the grass at 

 the edge of the water, or, when the water is low, on the 

 narrow beach which intervenes the water and the grass. 

 From this place it, on the approach of any one, hastens into 



