TORTOISE. 
147 
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, shuf- 
fling 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 animal, and never pretends to stir 
after it becomes dark. The tortoise, Hke 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 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 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 tortoise retired 
into the ground under the hepatica. 
LETTER XIV. To the Hon. DAINES BARRINGTOK 
DEAR SIR, Selhorne, March 26, 1773. 
The more I reflect on the (rropy?? of animals, the more I am asto- 
nished at its effects. Nor is the violence of this aflection more 
wonderful than the shortness of its duration. Thus every hen 
is in her turn the virago of the yard, in proportion to the help- 
lessness of her brood ; and will fly in the face of a dog or a sow 
