TORTOISE. 285 



he has found it on the banks of the streams in An- 

 dalusia. 



Our writers record it to have been found only 

 twice in Great Britain. From all these relations it 

 plainly appears, that these long-legged plovers are 

 birds of South Europe, and rarely visit our island ; 

 and when they do, are wanderers and stragglers, 

 and impelled to make so distant and northern an 

 excursion, from motives or accidents, for which we 

 are not able to account. One thing may fairly be 

 deduced, that these birds come over to us from the 

 Continent, since nobody can suppose that a species 

 not noticed once in an age, and of such a remark- 

 able make, can constantly breed unobserved in this 

 kingdom. 



LETTER XCII. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, April 21, 1780. 

 DEAR SIR, 



THE old Sussex tortoise, that I have mentioned 

 to you so often, is become my property. I dug it 

 cut of its winter dormitory in March last, when it 

 was enough awakened to express its resentments by 

 hissing ; and, packing it in a box with earth, carried 

 it eighty miles in post chaises. The rattle and hurry 

 of the journey so perfectly roused it, that when I 

 turned it out on a border, it walked twice down to 

 the bottom of my garden : however, in the evening, 

 the weather being cold, it buried itself in the loose 

 mould, and continues still concealed. 



As it will be under my eye, I shall now have an 

 opportunity of enlarging my observations on its 



