130 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



the coast, at present, are the stone-chatters, whincliats, 

 buntings, linnets, some few wheatears, titlarks, etc. 

 Swallows and house-martins abound yet, induced to prolong 

 their stay by this soft, still, dry season. 



A land tortoise, which has been kept for thirty years in 

 a little walled court belonging to the house where I now 

 am visiting, retires under ground about the middle of 

 November, and comes forth again about the middle of 

 April. When it first appears in the spring it discovers 

 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, sowtbistles, are its favourite dish. In 

 a neighbouring village one was kept till by tradition it was 

 supposed to be a hundred years old. An instance of vast 

 longevity in such a poor reptile ! 



LETTER VIII. 



SELBOENE, Dec. 202A, 1770. 



THE birds that I took for aberdavines were reed-sparrows 

 (Passer es torquati). 



There are doubtless many home internal migrations 

 within this kingdom that want to be better understood : 

 witness those vast flocks of hen-chaffinches that appear 

 with us in the winter without hardly any cocks among 

 them. Now was there a due proportion of each sex, it 

 should seem very improbable that any one district should 



