TORTOISE. 283 



While I was writing this letter, a moist and 

 warm afternoon, with the thermometer at 50, 

 brought forth troops of shell- snails ; and, at the 

 same juncture, the tortoise heaved up the mould 

 and put out its 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 feeling between two 

 <f>epoiKOL ! for so the Greeks call both the shell- 

 snail and the tortoise. 



Summer birds are, this cold and backward 

 spring, 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 abilities, 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 

 an 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 the heat in summer, so, in 



