178 NATURAL HISTORY OP SELBORNE. 



plovers are birds of South Europe, and rarely visit our island ; and 

 when they do, are wanderers and stragglers, and impelled to make so 

 distant and northern an excursion from motives or accidents for which 

 we are not able to account. One thing may fairly be deduced, that 

 these birds come over to us from the continent, since nobody can 

 suppose that a species not noticed once in an age, and of such a 

 remarkable make, can constantly breed unobserved in this kingdom. 



LETTEE, L. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, April 2lst, 1780. 



DEAR SIR. The old Sussex tortoise, that I have mentioned to you 

 so often, is become my property. I dug it out of its winter dormitory 

 in March last, when it was enough awakened to express its resentments 

 by hissing ; and, packing it in a box with earth, carried it eighty 

 miles in post-chaises. The rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly 

 roused it that, when I turned it out on a border, it walked twice down 

 to the bottom of my garden; however, in the evening, the weather 

 being cold, it buried itself in the loose mould, and continues still 

 concealed. 



As it will be under my eye, I shall now have an opportunity of 

 enlarging my observations on its mode of life, and propensities ; and 

 perceive already that, towards the time of coming forth, it opens a 

 breathing place in the ground near its head, requiring, I conclude, a 

 freer respiration as it becomes more alive. This creature not only goes 

 under the earth from the middle of November to the middle of April, 

 but sleeps great part of the summer : for it goes to bed in the longest 

 days at four in the afternoon, and often does not stir in the morning 

 till late. Besides, it retires to rest for every shower ; and does not 

 move at all in wet days. 



When one reflects on the state of this strange being, it is a matter of 

 wonder to find that Providence should bestow such a profusion of days, 

 such a seeming waste of longevity, on a reptile that appears to relish 

 it so little as to squander more than two-thirds of its existence in a 

 joyless stupor, and be lost to all sensation for months together in the 

 profoundest of slumbers. 



While I was writing this letter, a moist and warm afternoon, with 

 the thermometer at 50, brought forth troops of shell-snails ; and, at the 

 same juncture, the tortoise heaved up the mould and put out its head ; 

 and the next morning came forth, as it were raised from the dead ; and 

 walked about till four in the afternoon. This was a curious coincidence ! 

 a very amusing occurrence ! to see such a similarity of feelings between 

 the two QepeoiKoi I for so the Greeks called both the shell-snail and the 

 tortoise.* 



* We take the following information from the note to this chapter in Mr. Bennet's 

 edition. The tortoise died in the spring of 1794, and the shell of it was preserved, 

 and at the time Mr. Bennet wrote his notes (1836), it was in the possession of 



