CHELONIA. 9 



covers very little inclination towards food, but in the 

 height of summer grows voracious, and then, as the 

 summer declines, its appetite declines, so that for the 

 last six weeks in autumn it hardly eats at all. Milky 

 plants, such as lettuces, dandelions, sow-thistles, are 

 its favourite dish. On the 1st of November I re- 

 marked that it began to dig the ground in order to 

 form its winter retreat, which it had fixed on just be- 

 side a great tuft of hepaticas. It scrapes out the 

 ground with its fore-feet, and throws it up over its 

 back with its hind; but the motion of its legs is 

 ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour-hand of 

 a clock. Nothing can be more assiduous than this 

 creature night and day, in scooping the earth, and 

 forcing its great body into the cavity ; but, as the 

 noons of that season proved unusually warm and 

 sunny, it was continually interrupted and called forth 

 by the heat in the middle of the day ; and, though I 

 continued there till the 13th of November, yet the 

 work remained unfinished. Harsher weather, and 

 frosty mornings, would have quickened its operations. 

 No part of its behaviour ever struck me more than 

 the extreme timidity it always expresses with regard 

 to rain, for, though it has a shell that would secure it 

 against the wheel of a loaded cart, yet does it dis- 

 cover as much solicitude about rain as a lady dressed 

 in all her 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 with great earnestness in a morning, so 



B 5 



