112 
NATUEAL HISTORY OE SELBORNE. 
to the composure of an animal said to be a whole month in performing 
one feat of copulation. Nothing can be more assiduous than this 
creature night and day in scooping the earth, and forcing its great 
body into the cavity ; but, as the noons of that season proved unusually 
warm and sunny, it was continually interrupted, and called forth by the 
heat in the middle of the day ; and though I continued there till the 
thirteenth of November, yet the work remained unfinished. Harsher 
weather, and frosty mornings, would have quickened its operations. 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, 
shufiling 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 earnest- 
ness in a morning, so sure will it rain before night. It is totally a 
diurnal animal, 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 eating as well as breathing for a great part of the 
3^ear. 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 oflices : 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 his 
owner, and the ass his master's crib," * but the most abject reptile and 
torpid of beings distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched 
with the feelings of gratitude ! I am, &c. &c. 
P.S. In about three days after I left Sussex the tortoiso retired into 
the ground under the hepatica. 
LETTEE XIY. 
TO THE SAME. 
Selborne, March 26th, 1773. 
Dear Sie, — The more I reflect on the o-ropyT] of animals, the more I 
am astonished at its elFects. Nor is the violence of this alFection more 
wonderful than the shortness of its duration. Thus every hen is in her 
turn the virago of the yard, in proportion to the helplessness of her 
brood ; and will fly in the face of a dog or a sow in defence of those 
chickens, which in a few weeks she will drive before her with relentless 
cruelty. 
This affection sublimes the passions, quickens the invention, and 
sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation. Thus an hen, just become 
* Isaiah i. 3. 
f See Letter L. to Barrington. 
