260 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



the length of my correspondence has sufficiently put your pa- 

 tience to the test, I shall here take a respectful leave of you and 

 natural history together ; And am, &c. 



SEIKO.*., J.ne, 85, 1787. GIL. WHITE. 



More Particulars respecting the Old Family Tortoise, omitted in 



the Natural History. 



BECAUSE we call this creature an abject reptile, we are too apt 

 to undervalue his abilities, and depreciate his powers of instinct. 

 Yet he is, as Mr. Pope says of his lord, 



" Much too wise to walk into a well :" 



and has so much discernment as not to fall down an haha ; but to 

 stop and withdraw from the brink with the readiest precaution. 



Though he loves warm weather he avoids the hot sun"; be- 

 cause his thick shell, when once heated, would, as the poet says 

 of solid armour " scald with safety." He therefore spends the 

 more sultry hours under the umbrella of a large cabbage-leaf, or 

 amidst the waving forests of an asparagus-bed. 



But as he avoids heat in the summer, so, in the decline of the 

 year, he improves the faint autumnal beams, by getting within 

 the reflection of a fruit-wall : and, though he never has read that 

 planes inclining to the horizon receive a greater share of warmth,* 

 he inclines his shell, by tilting it against the wall, to collect and 

 admit every feeble ray. 



Pitiable seems the condition of this poor embarrassed reptile : 

 to be cased in a suit of ponderous armour, which he cannot lay 

 aside ; to be imprisoned, as it were, within his own shell, must 

 preclude, we should suppose, all activity and disposition for enter- 

 prize. Yet there is a season of the year (usually the beginning 

 of June) when his exertions are remarkable. He then walks on 

 tiptoe, and is stirring by five in the morning ; and, traversing the 

 garden, examines every wicket and interstice in the fences, through 

 which he will escape if possible : and often has eluded the care 

 of the gardener, and wandered to some distant field. The motives 

 that impel him to undertake these rambles seem to be of the 

 amorous kind ; his fancy then becomes intent on sexual attach- 

 ments, which transport him beyond his usual gravity, and induce 

 him to forget for a time his ordinary solemn deportment. 



* Several years ago a book was written entitled " Fruit-walls improved by inclining them to 

 horizon:" in which the author has shown, by calculation, that a much greater number of the 

 rays of the sun will fall on such walls than on those which are perpendicular. 



