LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



85 



motions in the thighs, and at length they raised 

 themselves upon their legs, wiped their eyes with 

 their fore-feet, beat and brushed their wings with 

 their hind-feet, and soon after began to fly finding 

 themselves in old England without knowing how 

 they came thither. The third continued lifeless till 

 sunset, when, losing all hopes of him, he was 

 thrown away. 



The philosopher thus improves the occasion : 



I wish it were possible, from this instance, to 

 invent a method of embalming drowned per- 

 sons, in such a manner that they might be recalled 

 to life at any period, however distant ; for, having 

 a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of 

 America an hundred years hence, I should prefer 

 to any ordinary death the being immersed in a cask 

 of Madeira wine, with a few friends, till that time, 

 to be recalled to life by the solar warmth of my 

 dear country.* 



Now, Heaven forbid, that in this incredulous 

 time any doubt should be thrown upon this com- 

 fortable story ; but I have somewhere met with 

 another account of the extraordinary longevity 

 of a fly. The relator, when in Germany, was 

 promised by his host a superlative wine which 

 had been ten years in bottle. The well-corked 

 flask was produced, and while mine host was 

 descanting on its age and merits, and holding it 

 up to the light, he, to whom it was offered, be- 

 held between his eye and the sun a fly vigorously 

 struggling on the surface of the wine. Modest as 

 he was, he could not resist his impulse to point 

 out the struggler, observing that the venerable in- 

 sect had, no doubt, been kept in health and vigor 

 by the elixir vita in the bottle. The innkeeper 

 and this is the strangest part of the story was 

 abashed ; and in his confusion was surprised into 

 a declaration that he never would tell another lie. 



The old nursery-book told us, and told us truly, 

 under usual circumstances, that 



The tortoise securely from danger does dwell, 

 When he tucks up his head and his tail in his shell. 



The true Terrapenes, or, as those land-tortoises 

 are called by Jack, " Turpins," may defy the 

 general chapter of accidents, though there may 

 be no safety either for him or the poet, on whose 

 bald head a raptorial bird may drop the reptile 

 from on high, taking the calvarium for a stone. 

 With a dorsal buckler constructed principally out 

 of eight pair of ribs, united towards their middle 

 by a succession of angular plates, into which the 

 ribs are, as it were, inlaid ; and a plastron or 

 breastplate composed of nine pieces, each of which, 

 with one exception, are pairs, the ninth being 

 placed between the four anterior pieces, with the 

 two first of which it generally coheres, when it is 

 not articulated with the four, and the whole form- 

 ing in the adult a strong breast-and-belly plate 

 compact in all its parts, and united on each side to 

 the dorsal buckler, the whole being so framed and 

 composed as to resist a very high degree of pres- 

 sure, or a powerful blow the land-tortoise has 

 only to offer the passive resistance of its defensive 



* Franklin's Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 227. 



armor to set at nought the attacks of ordinary en- 

 emies. There is one genus of land-tortoises* 

 which does not grow to such a size, or carry such 

 ponderous armor, as those of the genus Testudo, 

 that has a still further safeguard against the pre- 

 datory animals to whose attempts it is exposed. 

 In this form the anterior portion of the plastron, 

 reaching backward to the space occupied by the 

 two first pairs of sternal plates, is susceptible of 

 motion. Under the strongly-marked suture of the 

 second with the third pair, is the elastic ligament 

 which serves for a hinge. When the animal 

 wishes to open this movable lid, under which, 

 when closed, the head and fore-feet are closely 

 boxed up, it lowers the lid, protrudes its head.and 

 fore-feet, and walks or feeds till danger ap- 

 proaches, when it draws them in, raises the lid, 

 and thus shuts itself up in a compact-box ; for the 

 edges of this operculum on hinges fit close as 

 wax to those of the carapace, which here forms a 

 sort of animated door-case. Thus the animal has 

 nothing to fear in front ; and behind, it is securely 

 protected by its enlarged and deepened plastron, 

 under which the posterior extremities and tail can 

 be entirely and snugly drawn up. Among the 

 marsh-tortoisesf there is a similar conformation ; 

 and the species so protected have obtained the apt 

 name of Box-tortoises. 



But, as if Nature were determined to show that 

 she can vary any plan, however ingenious, she has 

 thought fit to turn out of hand another phase of 

 this box-like construction, and in Kinyxis we have 

 it behind instead of before. The tortoises of this 

 group are gifted with the power of moving the 

 posterior part of their carapace, which they can 

 lower and apply to their plastron, so as completely 

 to close the box behind, as those of the genus 

 Pyxis close the anterior part of their shells. But 

 in Kinyxis there is no hinge-like apparatus as 

 there is in Pyxis. In Kinyxis the bones bend ; 

 and, in consequence of their thinness and elasticity, 

 the carapace can be bent down at the will of the 

 animal, so as to approximate the plastron. A 

 sinuous line, on which the animal mechanism op- 

 erates, is indicated externally between the penulti- 

 mate and ante-penultimate marginal plate ; and 

 this point, or rather, line of flexion, is furni?hed 

 with a tissue partaking of the nature of fibre and 

 cartilage. 



But which of the land-tortoises furnished the 

 shell the chorded shell, dear to Apollo and the 

 Muses ? 



Pausanias says, that it was a species which was 

 found in the Arcadian woods ; and it very proba- 

 bly was that now known as Testudo Grezca. 

 Others declare that it was an African species 

 (whose carapace and dried tendons gave out a 

 sound when struck by Mercury, who found it after 

 an inundation of the Nile) that furnished the hint 

 for the lyre. 



The Elodians, or marsh-tortoises, are gifted 

 with far greater activity than their terrestrial re- 

 lations. They swim with great facility, and make 



* Pyxis. 



t Sternothaerus. 



