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 

 also ; so that for the last six weeks in autumn it hard- 

 ly eats at all. Milky plants, such as lettuces, dande- 

 lions, sowthistles, are its favourite dish. In a neigh- 

 bouring 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. 



RiNGMER, near Lewes, Oct. 8, 1770. 



LETTER XXXIX. 



To Thomas Pennant, Esq. 



After an ineffectual search in Linnaeus and Bris- 

 son, I begin to suspect that I discern my brother's 

 Hirundo hyberna in Scopoli's new discovered Hirundo 

 riipestris. His description of " Supra murina, subtus 

 albida ; rectrices macula ovali alba in latere interno ; 

 pedes nudi, nigri ; rostrum nigrum ; remiges obscu- 

 riores quam plumas dorsales ; rectrices remigibus 



147 



