374 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



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 ; be- 

 cause 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 rep- 

 tile : 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 dis- 

 position for enterprize. Yet there is a season of the year 

 (usually the beginning of June) when his exertions are re- 

 markable. 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 gar- 

 dener, 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 at- 

 tachments, which transport him beyond his usual gravity, and 

 induce him to forget for a time his ordinary solemn deport- 

 ment. 



* Several years ago a book was written entitled (< Fruit-walls improved 

 " by inclining them to the horizon :" in which the author has shewn, by 

 calculation, that a much greater number of the rays of the sun will fall on 

 such walls than on those which are perpendicular. 



