TORTOISE. 263 



shell-snails ; and, at the same juncture, the tortoise heaved 

 up the mould and put out its head ; and the next morning 

 came forth, as it were raised from the dead, and walked 

 about till four in the afternoon. This was a curious coinci- 

 dence a very amusing occurrence to see such a similarity 

 of feelings between two ^epcoiKot, for so the Greeks call 

 both the shell-snail and the tortoise. 



Summer birds are, this cold and backward spring, unusually 

 late : I have seen but one swallow yet. This conformity with 

 the weather convinces me more and more that they sleep in 

 the winter. 



MORE PARTICULARS RESPECTING THE OLD PAMILT 

 TORTOISE. 



BECAUSE we call this creature an abject reptile, we are too 

 apt to undervalue his abilities, and to depreciate his powers 

 of instinct. Yet he is, as Mr. Pope says of his lord, 



" Much too wise to walk into a well ;" 



and has so much discernment as not to fall down an 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 there- 

 fore 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 the heat in 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 



* Several years ago a book was written entitled, " Fruit Walls improved 



