NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 163 



goes under the earth from the middle of November 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 to find that Providence should 

 bestow such a profusion of days, such a seeming waste of 

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

 squander more than two-thirds of it's existence in a joyless 

 stupor, and be lost to all sensation for months together in 

 the profoundest of slumbers. 



While I was writing this letter, a moist and warm after- 

 noon, with the thermometer at 50, brought forth troops of 

 shell-snails ; and, at the same juncture, the tortoise 1 heaved 

 up the mould and put out it's head ; and the next morning 

 came forth, as it were raised from the dead ; and walked 

 about till four in the afternoon. This was a curious 

 coincidence ! a very amusing occurrence ! to see such a 

 similarity of feelings between the two fapeoiicoi \ for so the 

 Greeks called both the shell-snail and the tortoise? 



Summer birds are, this cold and backward spring, un- 

 usually late : I have seen but one swallow yet. This con- 

 formity with the weather convinces me more and more 

 that they sleep in the winter. 3 



1 [Professor Bell refers White's Tortoise to Testudo marginata, but Mr. Bennett 

 considered it to be a distinct species, and named it after Gilbert White, 7^estudo 

 whitri. The tortoise survived its owner nearly a year, dying in the spring of 

 1794. Its shell was preserved, and when Mr. Bennett wrote his edition of 1836 

 it was in the possession of Mrs. White. It was given by Mrs. Christopher to the 

 British Museum, where it still remains. [See notes to Jardine's ed. " Selborne," 

 p. 251, and Bell's edition, vol. i., p. 240. R. B. S.] 



2 White's tortoise is referred by me (Cat. Chelon. 1889, p. 176) to Testudo 

 ibera, Pallas, the species commonly sent to England from North Africa and of 

 which barrows' full are often seen in the London streets. [G. A. B.] 



3 At the end of the " Antiquities " Gilbert White published a further note on 

 the tortoise, which, not without reason, has been printed by some editors at the 

 end of Letter L. [R. B. S.] 



