LAND-TORTOISE. 545 



best attire, shuffling away on the first sprinklings, and running its 

 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 tip- 

 toe, feeding whh 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," adds Mr. W. "like other reptiles, has an arbi- 

 trary stomach, as well as lungs, and can refrain from eating, as 

 well as breathing, for a great part of the year. I was much taken 

 with its 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 its benefactress with 

 awkward alacrity ; but remains inattentive to strangers. Thus, not 

 only " the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib,'* 

 but the most abject and torpid of beings distinguishes the hand 

 that feeds it, and is touched with the feelings of gratitude. This 

 creature not only goes under the earth from the middle of No- 

 vember to the middle of April, but sleeps great part of the summer; 

 for it goes to bed in the longest days at four in the afternoon, and 

 often does not stir in the morning till late. Besides, it retires to 

 rest for every shower, and does not move at all in wet days. When 

 one reflects on the state of this strange being, it is a matter of 

 wonder that Providence should bestow such a seeming waste of 

 longevity, on a reptile that appears to relish it so little as to squander 

 away more than two thirds of its existence in a joyless stupor, and 

 be lost to all sensation for months together, in the profoundest of 

 all slumbers ! 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 speuds 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, 

 tol, v. 2 N 



