16 COMMON TORTOISE. 



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-tree 

 wall ; and though he has never 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." 



The Tortoise seems more tenacious of the vital 

 principle than any other of the Amphibia. Redi 

 informs us, that in making some experiments on 

 vital motion, he, in the beginning of November, 

 took a land tortoise, and made a large opening in 

 its skull, and drew out all the brain, washing the 

 cavity, so as to leave not the smallest part remain- 

 ing, and then, leaving the hole open, set the ani- 

 mal at libertv. Notwithstanding this treatment, 



/ o 



the Tortoise marched away, without seeming to 

 have received the smallest injury : it however closed 

 its eyes, and never opened them afterwards. In a 

 short space the hole of the skull was seen to close, 

 and in about three days there was a complete skin 

 covering the wound ; and in this manner the ani- 

 mal lived, without the brain, for six months, 

 walking about, and moving its limbs as before. 

 Redi also cut oif the head of a Tortoise, which 

 lived twenty-three days afterwards ; and the head 

 itself continued to snap the jaws for more than a 

 quarter of an hour after its separation from the 



