672 



A HISTORY OF 



minutes, is with them the business of days. 

 About a month after their enlargement from 

 a torpid state, they prepare to transmit their 

 posterity; and both continue joined for near 

 a month together. The eggs of the female 

 are contained in the ovary, above the blad- 

 der, which is extremely large ; and these are, 

 before their exclusion, round and naked, 

 with some spots of .red : after they are laid, 

 however, they assume another form, being 

 smaller and linger than those of a hen. This 

 alteration in the figure of the eggs most pro- 

 bably proceeds from the narrowness of the 

 bony passage through which they areexcluded. 

 Swammerdam, who compared the size of the 

 eggs taken out of this animal's body with the 

 diameter of the passage through which they 

 were excluded, was of opinion that the bones 

 themselves separated from each other, and 

 closed again; but, in my opinion, it is more 

 probable to suppose, that the eggs, and riot 

 the bones, alter their form. Certain it is, 

 that they are round in the body, and that they 

 are oval upon being protruded. 



The eggs of all the tortoise kind, like those 

 of birds, are furnished with a yolk and a 

 white ; but the shell is different, being some- 

 what like those soft eggs that hens exclude 

 before their time: however, this shell is much 

 thicker and stronger, and is a longer time in 

 cominj; to maturity in the womb. The land- 

 tortoise lays but a few in number, if com- 

 pared to the sea-turtle, who deposits from a 

 hundred and fifty to two hundred in a sea- 



The amount of the land-tortoise's eggs I 

 hue- not been able to learn; but, from the 

 scarceness of the animal, I am apt to think 

 they cannot be very numerous. When it 

 prepares to lay, the female scratches a slight 

 depression in the earth, generally in a warm 

 situation, where the beams of the sun have 

 th^ir full effect : there depositing her eg^s, 

 and covering them with grass and leaves, she 

 forsakes them, to be hatched by the heat of 

 the season. The young tortoises are gene- 

 rally excluded in about twenty-six days : but, 

 as the heat of the weather assists, or its cold- 

 ness retards incubation, sometimes it happens 

 that there is a difference of two or three days. 

 The little animals no sooner leave the egg 

 ilia?) they seek for their provision, entirely 



self-taught; and their shell, with which they 

 are covered from the beginning, expands and 

 grows larger with age : as it is composed of 

 a variety of pieces, they are all capable of 

 extension at their sutures, and the shell ad- 

 mits of increase in every direction. It is 

 otherwise with those animals, like the lobster, 

 whose shell is composed all of one piece, that 

 admits of no increase ; which, when the 

 tenant is too big for the habitation, must 

 burst the shell, and get another. But the 

 covering of the tortoise grows larger in pro- 

 portion as the internal parts expand ; in 

 some measure resembling the growth of the 

 human skull, which is composed of a num- 

 ber of bones, increasing in size in propor- 

 tion to the quantity of the brain. All tor- 

 toises, therefore, as they never change their 

 shell, must have it formed in pieces; and 

 though, in some that have been described by 

 painters or historians, these marks have not 

 been attended to, yet we can have no doubt 

 that they are general to the whole tribe. 



It is common enough to take these animals 

 into gardens, as they are thought to destroy 

 insects and snails in great abundance. We 

 are even told that in hot countries, they are 

 admitted into a domestic state, as they are 

 great destroyers of bugs. How so large and 

 heavy an animal is capable of being expert 

 at such petty prey, is not easy to conceive ; 

 but I have seen several of them about gentle- 

 men's houses, that, in general, appear torpid, 

 harmless, and even fond of employment. 

 Children have sometimes got upon the back 

 of a tortoise ; and such was the creature's 

 strength, that it never seemed overloaded, 

 but moved off with its burden to where it ex- 

 pected to be fed, but would carry them no 

 further. In winter they regularly- find out a 

 place to sleep in ; but in those warm coun- 

 tries in which the tortoise is found larger, 

 and in greater plenty than in Europe, they 

 live, without retiring, the whole year round. 



The Sea-Tortoise, or Turtle, as it is now 

 called, is generally found larger than the 

 former. This element is possessed with the 

 property of increasing the magnitude of those 

 animals, which are common to the land and 

 the ocean. The sea-pike is larger than that 

 of fr^sli water; the sea-bear is larger than 

 that of the mountains: and the sea-turtle ei 



