250 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



Though he loves warm weather he avoids the hot sun ; because his 

 thick shell, when once heated, would, as the poets 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 heat in the 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 

 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. 



LETTER LI. 



SELBOKNE, Sept. 3rd, 1781. 



I HAVE now read your miscellanies through with much care 

 and satisfaction ; and am to return you my best thanks for 



* Several years ago a book was written entitled Fruit Walls 

 Improved ly 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 perpen- 

 dicular. 



