LETTER L. 



the same. 



SELBORNE, April zist, 1780. 



EAR SIR, The old Sussex tortoise, that I have 

 mentioned to you so often, is become my pro- 

 perty. I dug it out of its winter dormitory in 

 March last, when it was enough awakened to 

 express its resentments by hissing ; 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 propensities ; 

 and perceive already that, towards the time of coming forth, it 

 opens a breathing place in the ground near its head, 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 days at four in the 



