278 NATURAL HISTORY 



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, 1 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. 2 



1 Several years ago a book was written entitled " Fruit-walls im- 

 proved 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. 

 G. W. 



2 This tortoise survived its master about a year, dying, it is 

 believed, in the spring of 1794, after an existence in England of about 

 fifty-four years, the last fourteen of which were spent at Selborne. Its 

 shell, which is still preserved at Selborne, in the residence of the 

 former owner, is considered by Mr. Bell to be that of Testudo mar- 

 ginata, the largest of the three European tortoises ; but Mr. Bennett, 

 for reasons stated by him in a note to this passage in his edition of the 

 present work, was of opinion that it should be referred to a distinct 

 species, and he proposed for it the specific name Whitei, in compliment 

 to our author. ED. 



