380 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



and has so much discernment as not to fall down a haha, but to 

 stop and withdraw from the brink with the readiest precaution. 



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

 his thick shell, when once heated, would, as the poet says of solid 

 armour, " scald with safety." He therefore spends the more sultry 

 hours under the umbrella of a large cabbage-leaf, or amidst the 

 waving forests of an asparagus 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. 



Pitiable seems the condition of this poor embarrassed reptile ; 

 to be cased in a suit 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 

 enterprise. Yet there is a season of the year (usually the begin- 

 ning of June) when his exertions are remarkable. He then walks 

 on tiptoe, and is stirring by five in the morning; and, traversing 

 the garden, examines every wicket and interstice in the fences, 

 through which he will escape if possible ; and often has eluded 

 the care of the gardener, and wandered to some distant field. 

 The motives that impel him to undertake these rambles seem to 

 be of the amorous kind ; his fancy then becomes intent on sexual 

 attachments, which transport him beyond his usual gravity, and 

 induce him to forget for a time his ordinary solemn deportment. 



* Several years ago a book was written entitled "Fruit Walls Improved by 

 Inclining them to the Horizon :" in which the author has shown, by calcula- 

 tion, that a much greater number of the rays of the sun will fall on such walls 

 than on those which are perpendicular. 



