ANTIQUITIES OF SELBOENE. 265 



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 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 . 



* Several years ago a book was written entitled "Fruit Walls Improved by 

 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 perpendicular. 



FRTORY SEAL. 



