yet the work remained unfinished. Harsher weather, 

 and frosty mornings, would have quickened its opera- 

 tions. No part of its behaviour ever struck me more 

 than the extreme timidity it always expresses with 

 regard to rain ; for though it has a shell that would 

 secure it against the wheel of a loaded cart, yet does 

 it discover as much solicitude about rain as a lady 

 dressed in all her best attire, shuffling away on the 

 first sprinklings, and running its head up in a corner. 

 If attended to it becomes an excellent weather-glass ; 

 for as sure as it walks elate, and as it were on tiptoe, 

 feeding with great earnestness in a morning, so sure 

 will it rain before night. It is totally a diurnal ani- 

 mal, and never pretends to stir after it becomes dark. 

 The tortoise, like other reptiles, has an arbitrary 

 stomach as well as lungs ; and can refrain from eat- 

 ing as well as breathing for a great part of the year. 

 When first awakened it eats nothing ; nor again in 

 the autumn before it retires : through the height of 

 the summer it feeds voraciously, devouring all the 

 food that comes in its way. I was much taken with 

 its sagacity in discerning those that do it kind offices ; 

 for as soon as the good old lady comes in sight who 

 has waited on it for more than thirty years, it hobbles 

 towards its benefactress with awkward alacrity ; but 

 remains inattentive to strangers. Thus not only ''the 

 ox knoweth its owner, and the ass his master's crib,"^ 



* Isaiah i. 3. 

 180 



