OF SELBORNE. 359 



unusually late : I have seen but one swallow yet. This 

 conformity with the weather convinces me more and 

 more that they sleep in the winter. 



More particulars respecting the old family tortoise. 



Because we call this creature an abject reptile, we 

 are too apt to undervalue his abilites, 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 a 

 haha; but to stop and withdraw from the brink with 

 the readiest precaution. 



Though he loves warm weather, he avoids the hot 

 sun ; because 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 1 , 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 enterprise. Yet 

 there is a season of the year (usually the beginning of 

 June) when his exertions are remarkable. He then 



1 Several years ago a book was written entitled " Fruit- walls improved 

 by inclining them to the 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. 



