WhttesTorToise 's Shell 



LETTER L. 



To the same. 



SELBORNE, April z\st, 1780. 

 EAR SIR, The old Sussex tortoise, that I 

 have mentioned to you so often, is become 

 my property. I dug it out of its winter dor- 

 mitory in March last, when it was enough 

 awakened to express its resentments by hiss- 

 ing; 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 mode of life, and propen- 

 sities ; and perceive already that, towards the time of coming 

 forth, it opens a breathing place in the ground near its 

 head r requiring, I conclude, a freer respiration as it becomes 

 more alive. This creature not only goes under the earth from 

 the middle of November to the middle of April, but sleeps 

 great part of the summer ; for it goes to bed in the longest 



