14 
LECTURE VIL 
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 shovrer, and 
does not move at all in wet daj'^s. When one 
reflects on the state of this strange being, it is 
a matter of wonder that Providence should bestow 
such a seeming waste of longevity on a reptile 
that appears to relish it so little as to squander 
away more than two thirds of its existence in 
a joyless stupor, and be lost to all sensation for 
months together in the profoundest of all slum- 
bers ! Though he loves warm weather, he avoids 
the hot sun j 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-tree wall ; and though he has never 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.” 
