and has so much discernment as not to fall down a 

 ha-ha: 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 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 embar- 

 rassed 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 enter- 

 prise. Yet there is a season of the year (usually the 

 beginning of June) when his exertions are remark- 

 able. 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 w^hich 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 



139 



