97 



not perceptibly cold*; and its respiration, entirely 

 effected through the nostrils, was languid. We visited 

 the animal, for the last time, on the 9th of June, 1813, 

 during a thunder storm : it then lay under the shelter 

 of a cauliflower, and apparently torpid. 



It is very singular that the lettuce and dandelion 

 should find such predilections with the tortoise : the 

 lactescent juice of the former, from the opium it con- 

 tains, is powerfully narcotic ; and we have found that 

 the extract, taraxici, applied to the sciatic nerves of a 

 frog, acted in a. similar manner to opium, by suspend- 

 ing voltaic excitement. It is also remarkable that 

 these should have been rejected when the fruit 

 season commenced, and the strawberry and goose- 

 berry preferred ; its antipathy to cherries is equally 

 curious, and not less so its aversion to fluids. On the 

 whole, that narcotics or sedatives should take pre- 

 cedence of all other kinds of food in the former part 

 of the season, and those that act a different part 

 in the animal economy toward the autumn, is cer- 

 tainly surprising. 



This tortoise, so long an inmate in the palace garden 

 at Peterborough, died on the second of April last. 

 Having taken considerable interest in the fate of this 

 remarkable animal, we wrote to the Lord Bishop of 

 Peterborough, requesting the favour of a few particu- 

 lars in its history, and had the gratification to receive 

 from His Lordship the following interesting communi- 

 cation, which we feel much pleasure in adding to cur 

 personal observations, while we acknowledge the 

 prompt courtesy with which it was made: "The 



* Dr. Davy took the temperature of the testudo geometrica at 

 Cape Town, in May: air 61 ; the animal 62.5. At Columbo, 

 in Ceylon, on the 3d of March, the temperature of a larger spe- 

 cimen was 87, while the air was 80. 

 F 



