NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 251 



Though he loves warm weather, he avoids the hot sun ; because 

 this tliick shell, when once heated, would, as the poet says of solid 

 armour, ' scald with safety.' He, therefore, si)ends the more sultry 

 hours under the umbrella of a large cabbage leaf, or amid the 

 waving forests of an asjjaragus bed. But as he avoids heat in the 

 summer, so in the decline of the year he improves the faint autumnal 

 beams, by getting within the reflection of a fruit-wall ; and though 

 he never has read that planes inclining to the horizon receive a 

 greater share of warmth, he inclines his shell, by tilting it against 

 the wall, to collect and admit every feeble ray. 



This pet was a huge sleeper; for it not only remained 

 under the earth from the middle of November to the 

 middle of April, its arbitrary stomach and lungs enabling 

 it to refrain from eatincr as well as breathinor durino^ that 

 time, but slept the greater part of the summer ; for it 

 went to bed in the longest days at four in the afternoon, 

 and often did not stir in the morning till late. Besides, 

 it retired to rest for every shower, and did not move at 

 all on wet days. 



When one reflects (says Wliite) on the state of this strange 

 being, it is a matter of wonder to find that Providence should 

 bestow such a profusion of days, such a seeming waste of longevity, 

 on a reptile that appears to relish it so little as to squander away 

 more than two-thirds of its existence in a joyless stupor, and be 

 lost to all sensation for mouths together in the profoundest of 

 slumbers. 



But notwithstanding this lethargic temperament the 

 old tortoise knew its benefactress, and as soon as the good 

 old lady came in sight, who had waited on it for more 

 than thirty years, it hobbled towards her with awkward 

 alacrity, but remained inattentive to strangers. There 

 was, too, an annual period when he was unusually on 

 the alert. We think we can see the worthy pastor of 

 Selborne looking down, with the air of the melancholy 

 Jaques, on his favourite, and exclaiming: — 



Pitiable seems the condition of this poor embarrassed reptile : 

 to be cased in a sviit of ponderous armour, which he cannot lay 

 aside ; to be imprisoned, as it were, within his own shell, must 

 preclude, we should suppose, all activity and disposition for 



