TORTOISE. 125 



motion of its legs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding the 

 hour hand of a clock, and suitable to the composure of an 

 animal said to be a whole month in performing one feat of 

 copulation. 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 unu- 

 sually 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 discover 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 w r ere on tiptoe, feeding with great earnest- 

 ness in a morning, so sure will it rain before night. It is 

 totally a diurnal animal, and never pretends 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 benefactress with awkward alacrity ; but remains 

 inattentive to strangers. Thus not only " the ox krroweth 

 his owner, and the ass his master's crib,"* but the most abject 

 reptile and torpid of beings distinguishes the hand that feeds 

 it, and is touched with the feelings of gratitude. 



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

 retired into the ground under the hepatica. f 



* Isaiah, i. 3. 



f A singular circumstance occurred at Ludlow with a tortoise, the 

 property of Mr Jones, which was put in a convenient place to spend 

 the winter. It was soon attacked by rats, which ate away its eyes, 

 tongue, and all the under parts of its throat, together with the windpipe. 

 In that mutilated state it is supposed it had continued for about three 

 weeks prior to its being discovered. The most remarkable circumstance 



