180 NATURAL HISTORY 
till the 13th of November, yet the work remained 
unfinished. Harsher weather and frosty mornings 
would have quickened its operations. No part of 
its behaviour ever struck me more than the extreme 
timidity it always expresses with regard to rain ; 
for, though it has a shell that would secure it against 
the wheel of a loaded cart, yet does it discover as 
much solicitude about rain as a lady dressed in all 
her best attire, shuffling away on the first sprink- 
lings, and running its head up in acorner. If at- 
tended to, it becomes an excellent weather-glass ; | 
for as sure as it walks elate, and, as it were, on tip- 
toe, feeding with great earnestness in a morning, 
so sure will it rain before night. It is totally a di. 
urnal animal, and never pretends to stir after it be- 
comes dark. The tortoise, like other reptiles, has 
an arbitrary stomach as well as lungs, and can re- 
frain from eating as well as breathing for a great 
part of the year. When first awakened it eats 
nothing, nor again in the autumn before it retires: 
through the height of the summer it feeds vora. 
ciously, devouring all the food that comes in its 
way. Iwas much taken with its sagacity in dis- 
cerning those that do it kind offices; for, as soon 
as the good old lady comes in sight who has wait- 
ed on it for more than thirty years, it hobbles to- 
wards its benefactress with awkward alacrity, but 
remains inattentive to strangers. Thus not only 
‘the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his mas- 
ter’s crib,”* but the most abject reptile and torpid 
of beings distinguishes the nand that feeds it, and 
is touched with the feelings of gratitude. 
_,.P.S.—In about three days after I left Sussex, 
* Isaiah, i., 3. BS 
