TORTOISE. 147 



warm and sunny, it was continually interrupted, and called forth 

 by the heat in the middle of the day ; and though I continued 

 there till the thirteenth of November, yet the work remained 

 unfinished. Harsher weather, and frosty mornings, would have 

 quickened its operations. No part of its behaviour ever struck 

 me more than the extreme timidity it always expresses with 

 regard to rain ; for though it has a shell that would secure it 

 against the wheel of a loaded cart, yet does it discover as much 

 solicitude about rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire, shuf- 

 fling away on the first sprinklings, and running its head up in a 

 corner. If attended to, it becomes an excellent weather-glass ; 

 for as sure as it walks elate, and as it were on tiptoe, feeding 

 with great earnestness in a morning, so sure will it rain before 

 night. It i& totally a diurnal animal, and never pretends to stir 

 after it becomes dark. The tortoise, like other reptiles, has an 

 arbitrary stomach as well as lungs ; and can refrain from eating 

 as well as breathing for a great part of the year. When first 

 awakened it eats nothing; nor again in the autumn before it 

 retires : through the height of the summer it feeds voraciously, 

 devouring all the food that comes in its way. I was much taken 

 with its sagacity in discerning those that do it kind offices ; for, 

 as soon as the good old lady comes in sight who has waited on 

 it for more than thirty years, it hobbles towards its benefactress 

 with awkward alacrity ; but remains inattentive to strangers. 

 Thus not only " the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his 

 master's crib,"* but the most abject reptile and torpid of beings 

 distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched with the 

 feelings of gratitude ! I am, &c. &c. 



P.S. In about three days after I left Sussex the tortoise retired 

 into the ground under the hepatica. 



LETTER XIV. To THE HON. DAINES HARRINGTON. 



DEAR SIR, Selborne, March 26, 1773. 



THE more I reflect on the <rropy?/ of animals, the more I am asto- 

 nished at its effects. Nor is the violence of this affection more 

 wonderful than the shortness of its duration. Thus every hen 

 is in her turn the virago of the yard, in proportion to the help- 

 lessness of her brood ; and will fly in the face of a dog or a sow 



* Isaiah i. 3. 



L 2 



