#84' TORTOISE. 



the decline of the year, he improves the faint 

 autumnal beams, hy getting within the reflection 

 of a fruit wall ; and, though he never has read that 

 planes inclining to the horizon receive a greater 

 share of warmth l he inclines his shell, by tilting 

 it against the wall, to collect and admit every 

 feeble ray. 



Pitiable seems the condition of this poor em- 

 barrassed reptile : to be cased in a suit of pon- 

 derous armour, which he cannot lay aside; to be 

 imprisoned, as it were, within his own shell, 

 must preclude, we should suppose, all activity and 

 disposition for enterprise. Yet there is a season 

 of the year (usually the beginning of June) when 

 his exertions are remarkable. He then walks on 

 tiptoe, and is stirring by five in the morning ; and, 

 traversing the garden, examines every wicket and 

 interstice in the fences, through which he will 

 escape if possible ; and often has eluded the care 

 of the gardener, and wandered to some distant 

 field. The motives that impel him to undertake 

 these rambles seem to be of the amorous kind : his 

 fancy then becomes intent on sexual attachments, 

 which transport him beyond his usual gravity, 

 and induce him to forget for a time his ordinary 

 solemn deportment. 



f Several years ago a book was written entitled, " Fruit 

 walls improved by inclining them to the horizon;" in which 

 the author has shown, by calculation, that a much greater 

 number of the rays of the sun will fall on such walls than on 

 those which are perpendicular. 



