TIMOTHY THE TORTOISE 209 



among cabbages or asparagus, but loves warm weather. 

 When in the autumn it buries itself, scraping out the 

 ground with its forefeet, and throwing the soil up over 

 its back with its hind feet, it works with a movement 

 almost as slow as that of the hour hand of a clock. 

 On such a warm afternoon in April as brings forth 

 the shell-snails, the tortoise heaves up the mould, and 

 puts out its neck coming forth to walk abroad, as if 

 raised from the dead. Sometimes a wandering fit 

 seizes him, and he escapes from the garden. Though 

 Timothy was allowed to eat freely of lettuces, poppies, 

 kidney-beans, gooseberries, and all kinds of herbs and 

 fruits, he would now and then hobble off to spend a 

 holiday in meadows and beanfields. 



Timothy will be ever famous among tortoises ; and 

 a touching appeal he once made, speaking through 

 the mouth of his master, should not be forgotten an 

 appeal for more consideration for the poor tortoise, 

 torn away from the society of other agreeable creatures 

 of its kind. 



" Let me make my case your own," urged Timothy. 

 " Suppose you were to be kidnapped away to-morrow 

 in the bloom of your life to a land of tortoises, and 

 were never to see again a human face for fifty years ! 

 Think on this, and pity." 



It is pleasant to think of the good clergyman and 

 great observer thus amusing himself by writing down 

 all kinds of whimsical ideas about his favourite tor- 

 toise little dreaming of the pleasure his writing would 

 give to readers all the world over and will give 

 through the ages. 



Timothy the tortoise hailed from America from 

 Virginia, whence many of his kind have made the long 



