278 
NATURAL HISTORY 
of a large cabbage leaf, or amidst the waving forests of an 
asparagus bed- 
But as he avoids beat 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/ 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.'^ 
^ 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. 
^ 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. BeU 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 WTiitei, in compliment 
to our author. — Ed. 
