242 TORTOISE. 



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 a 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 the decline of 

 the year, he improves the faint autumnal beams, by 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,* he inclines his shell, by tilting it against the wall* 

 to collect and admit every feeble ray. 



Pitiable seems the condition of this poor embarrassed reptile ; 

 to be cased in a suit of ponderous 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 inter- 

 stice 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 under- 

 take 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. 



* Several years ago a book was written entitled, " Fruit walls improved 

 by inclining them to the horizon ; " in which the author has shewn, by 

 calculation, that a much greater number of the rays of the sun will fall on 

 such walls than on those which are perpendicular. 



