14 COMMON TORTOISE. 



the middle of April. When it first appears in the 

 spring, it discovers very little inclination for food, 

 but in the height of summer grows voracious ; 

 and then, as the summer declines, its appetite de- 

 clines ; so that for the last weeks in autumn it 

 hardly eats at all. Milky plants, such as lettuces, 

 dandelions, sowthistles, &c. are its principal food. 

 On the first of November, 1771, I remarked that 

 the Tortoise began to dig the ground, in order to 

 form its hvbernaculum, which it had fixed on 



I 



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. Nothing can be more assidu- 

 ous than this creature, night and day, in scooping 

 the earth, and forcing its great body into the ca- 

 vity ; but as the noons of that season proved un- 

 usually warm and sunny, it was continually inter- 

 rupted, 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 morn- 

 ings, would have quickened its operations. No 

 part of its behaviour ever struck me more than 

 the extreme timidity it always expresses with re- 

 gard 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, shuffling 

 away on the first sprinklings, and running its 

 head up in a corner. If attended to, it becomes 



