LECTURE VIL 
11 
Tortoise has had the honour of being comme- 
morated by Derham*', and many other writers, 
and its shell is preserved in the library of the 
palace at Lambeth f. 
The general manners of the Tortoise, in a 
state of domestication in this country, are very 
agreeably detailed by Mr. White, in his History e 
of Selbourn. A Land Tortoise,” says' Mr. 
AVhite, which has been kept thirty years in a 
little walled court, 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 for 
food, but in the height of summer grows vora- 
* In a copy of the work entitled Meinoirs for the Natural 
History of Animals, from the French academy, and which was 
once the property of Derham, the following MS. note occurs. 
I imagine Land-Tortoises, when arrived at a certain pitch, 
cease growing. For that I saw, Aug. 11 , 1712, in my lord arch-" 
bishop of Canterbury’s garden, which had been there ever since 
archbishop Juxon’s time, and is accounted to be above 60 years 
old, was of the same size I have seen others of, of larger size, and 
much younger.” 
d This memorable Tortoise appears to have exceeded the usual 
dimensions of its species 5 the shell measuring ten inches in length, 
and six and a half in breadth. 
