XCll.] 
OF SELBORNE. 
249 
and a most accurate observer of nature has assured me that he 
lias found it on the banks of the streams in Andalusia. 
Our writers record it to have been found only twice in Great 
Britain. From all these relations it plainly appears that these 
long-legged plovers are birds of South Europe, and rarely visit 
our island ; and when they do are wanderers and stragglers, and 
impelled to make so distant and northern an excursion from 
motives or accidents for which we are not able to account. One 
thing may fairly be deduced, that these birds come over to us 
from the Continent, since nobody can suppose that a species not 
noticed once in an age, and of such a remarkable make, can 
constantly breed unobserved in this kingdom. 
Selbornk, May 7, 1779. 
LETTER XCIT. 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 
The old Sussex tortoise, that I have mentioned to you so often, 
is become my property. I dug it out of its winter dormitory in 
March last, when it was enough awakened to express its resent- 
ments by hissing; and packing it in a box with earth, carried it 
eighty miles in post-chaises. The rattle and hurry of the journey 
so perfectly roused it that, when I turned it out on a border, it 
walked twice down to the bottom of my garden; how^ever, in 
the evening, the weather being cold, it buried itself in the loose 
mould, and continues still concealed. 
As it will be under my eye, I shall now have an opportunity 
of enlarging my observations on its mode of life, and propen- 
sities ; and perceive already that towards the time of coming 
forth, it opens a breathing-place in the ground near its head, 
requiring, T conclude, a freer respiration as it becomes more 
alive. This creature not only goes under the earth from the 
middle of November to the middle of April, but sleeps great 
