LETTER XIII. 



To the same. 



April 12/4 J772. 



EAR SIR, While I was in Sussex last autumn my 

 residence was at the village near Lewes, from 

 whence I had formerly the pleasure of writing 

 to you. On the first of November I remarked 

 that the old tortoise, formerly mentioned, began 

 first to dig the ground in order to the forming its 

 hybernaculum, which it had fixed on just beside 

 a great tuft of hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground with its fore- 

 feet, and throws it up over its back with its hind ; but the motion 

 of its legs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour-hand of a 

 clock : and suitable to the composure of an animal said to be a 

 whole month in performing one feat of copulation. Nothing can 

 be more assiduous than this creature night and day in scooping the 



