OF SELBORNE 129 



LETTER XIII 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON 



April 12, 1772. 



Dear Sir, 

 While I was in Sussex last autumn my residence was at 

 the village near Lewes, from whence I had formerly the 

 pleasure of writing to you. On the first of November 

 I remarked that the old tortoise, formerly mentioned, 

 began first to dig the ground in order to the forming 

 its hybernaculum, which it had fixed on just beside a 

 great tuft of hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground with its 

 fore-feet, and throws it up over its back with its hind ; 

 but the motion of its legs is ridiculously slow, little 

 exceeding the hour-hand of a clock ; and suitable to the 

 composure of an animal said to be a whole month in 

 performing one feat of copulation. Nothing can be more 

 assiduous than this creature night and day in scooping the 

 earth, and forcing its great body into the cavity ; but, 

 as the noons of that season proved unusually warm and 

 sunny, it was continually interrupted, and called forth 

 by the heat in the middle of the day ; and though I 

 continued there till the thirteenth 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 sprinklings, and running its head up in a 

 corner. If attended to, it becomes an excellent weather- 

 glass ; for as sure as it walks elate, and as it were on 

 tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in a morning, so 

 sure will it rain before night. It is totally a diurnal 

 animal, and never pretends to stir after it becomes dark. 



I 



