44 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



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 pre- 

 tends 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 its way. 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 bene- 

 factress with awkward alacrity ; but remains inattentive to 

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

 the ass his master s crib," 1 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, with the greatest respect 

 Your most obliged, and Humble servant 



Gil : White. 



Please to direct to me at the Rev d : M r - White's at 

 Fyfield near Andover. Pray when do you set-out on y r 

 circuit ; and when is it that M r - Banks is expected to sail ?] 



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

 retired into the ground under the hepatica. 



1 Isaiah i. 3. 



