112 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBOUNE. 



to the composure of an animal said to be a whole month in performing 

 one feat of copulation. Nothing can be more assiduous than this 

 creature night and day in scooping the earth, and forcing its great 

 body into the cat ity ; but, as the noons of that season proved unusually 

 warm and sunny, it was continually interrupted, and called forth by the 

 heat in the middle of the day ; and though I continued there till the 

 thirteenth of November, yet the work remained unfinished. Harsher 

 weather, and frosty mornings, would have quickened its operations. No 

 part of its behaviour ever struck me more than the extreme timidity it 

 always expresses with regard to rain ; for though it has a shell that 

 would secure it against the wheel of a loaded cart, yet does it discover 

 as much solicitude about rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire, 

 shuffling away on the first sprinklings, and running its head up in a 

 corner. If attended to, it becomes an excellent weather-glass ; for as 

 sure as it walks elate, and as it were on tiptoe, feeding with great earnest- 

 ness iri a morning, so sure will it rain before night. It is totally a 

 diurnal animal, and never pretends to stir after it becomes dark. The 

 tortoise, like other reptiles, has an arbitrary stomach as well as lungs ; 

 and can refrain from eating as well as breathing for a great part of the 

 year. When first awakened it eats nothing ; nor again in the autumn 

 before it retires : through the height of the summer it feeds voraciously, 

 devoiiring all the food that comes in its way. I was much taken with its 

 sagacity in discerning those that do it kind offices : for, as soon as the 

 good old lady comes in sight who has waited on it for more than thirty 

 years, it hobbles towards its benefactress with awkward alacrity ; but 

 remains inattentive to strangers. Thus not only " the ox knoweth his 

 owner, and the ass his master's crib," * but the most abject reptile and 

 torpid of beings distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched 

 with the feelings of gratitude ! I am, &c. &c, 



P.S; In about three days after I left Sussex the tortoise retired into 

 the ground under the hepatica. + 



LETTEE XIV. 



TO TfiE SAME. 



SELBORNE, March 26ta, 1773. 



DEAR SIR, The more I reflect on the ffropy^j of animals, the more I 

 am astonished at its effects. Nor is the violence of this affection more 

 wonderful than the shortness of its duration. Thus every hen is in her 

 turn the virago of the yard, in proportion to the helplessness of her 

 brood ; and will fly in the face of a dog or a sow in defence of those 

 chickens, which in a few weeks she will drive before her with relentless 

 cruelty. 



This affection sublimes the passions, quickens the invention, and 

 sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation. Thus an hen, just become 



* Isaiah i. 3. f See Letter L. to Harrington. 



