144 NATURAL HISTORY 



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. The tortoise, like 

 other reptiles, has an arbitrary stomach as well as lungs ; and 

 can refrain from eating as well as breathing for a great part 

 of the year. When first awakened it eats nothing ; nor again 

 in the autumn before it retires : through the height of the 

 summer it feeds voraciously, devouring all the food that 

 comes in it's way. I was much taken with it's sagacity in 

 discerning those that do it kind offices ; for, as soon as the 

 good old lady comes in sight who has waited on it for more 

 than thirty years, it hobbles towards it's benefactress with 

 aukward alacrity ; but remains inattentive to strangers. Thus 

 not only " the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's 

 "m6," b but the most abject reptile and torpid of beings 

 distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched with the 

 feelings of gratitude ! 



I am, &c. &c. 



P. S. In about three days after I left Sussex the tortoise 

 retired into the ground under the hepatica*. 



b Isaiah i. 3. 



* [The absolute torpidity and suspension of all the animal functions 

 during the hibernation of the tortoise was very strikingly exemplified in 

 one which I had kept in a small orchard during the summer. It was a 

 new and remarkably large species from South Africa. Its neck was very 

 long ; and it fed entirely upon grass, which it plucked with a sidelong 

 movement like a goose. Immediately before hibernating it ate heartily 

 of grass, and then took up its winter quarters under some hay in the 

 stable, where it remained undisturbed till the spring. On leaving its 

 place of rest it just came forth and died, without ever having any possible 

 access to grass. On opening the stomach however, it was found literally 

 stuffed with the last meal of grass taken so many months before, as green 

 as when eaten, and wholly unchanged. The species was Testudo pardalis 

 (Zool. Journ. iii. p. 419, t. xxv. Supp.). Respecting the age to which 

 tortoises attain, Sir William Jardine, in his edition of this work, mentions 

 several instances, from different authorities, of which the ages were from 

 107 to 229 years. T. B.] 



