122 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



old tortoise, 1 formerly mentioned, began first to dig the ground 

 in order to the forming it's hybernaculum, which it had fixed on 

 just beside a great tuft of hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground 

 with it's fore-feet, and throws it up over it's back with it's hind ; 

 but the motion of it's legs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding 

 the hour-hand of a clock ; and suitable to the composure of an 

 animal said to be a whole month in performing one feat of 

 copulation. Nothing can be more assiduous than this creature 

 night and day in scooping the earth, and forcing it's great body 

 into the cavity ; but, as the noons of that season proved unusually 

 warm and sunny, it was continually interrupted, 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 mornings, would have 

 quickened it's operations. No part of it's behaviour ever struck 

 me more than the extreme timidity it always expresses with 

 regard 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 it's head up 

 in a corner. If attended to, it becomes an excellent weather- 

 glass ; for as sure as it walks elate, and as it were on tiptoe, 

 feeding with great earnestness in a morning, so sure will it rain 

 before night. It is totally a diurnal animal, and never pretends 

 to stir after it becomes dark. The tortoise, like other reptiles, 

 has an arbitrary stomach as well as lungs ; and can refrain from 

 eating as well as breathing for a great part of the year. When 

 first awakened it eats nothing ; nor again in the autumn before 

 it retires : through the height of the summer it feeds voraciously, 

 devouring all the food that comes in it's way. I was much 

 taken with it's sagacity in discerning those that do it kind 

 offices : for, as soon as the good old lady comes in sight who has 

 waited on it for more than thirty years, it hobbles towards it's 

 benefactress with aukward alacrity ; but remains inattentive to 

 strangers. Thus not only " the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass 

 his master's crib," 2 but the most abject reptile and torpid of 

 beings distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched with 

 the feelings of gratitude ! 



I am, &c. &c. 



P.S. In about three days after I left Sussex the tortoise 

 retired into the ground under the hepatica. 



1 [See Letters VII. and L. to Harrington.] 2 Isaiah i. 3. 



