260 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
the length of my correspondence has sufficiently put your pa- 
tience to the test, I shall here take a respectful leave of you and • 
natural history together ; And am, &c. 
Sklboune, June, 25, 1787- GIL. WHITE. 
More Particulars respecting the Old Family Tortoise, omitted in 
the Natural History. 
Because we call this creature an abject reptile, we are too apt 
to undervalue his abilities, and depreciate his powers of instinct. 
Yet he is, as Mr. Pope says of his lord, 
Much too wise to walk into a well :" 
and has so much discernment as not to fall down an haha ; but to 
stop and withdraw from the brink with the readiest precaution. 
Though he loves warm weather he avoids the hot sun ; be- 
cause his thick shell, when once heated, would, as the poet says 
of solid armour — " scald with safety." He therefore spends the 
more sultry hours under the umbrella of a large cabbage-leaf, or 
amidst the waving forests of an asparagus-bed. 
But as he avoids heat 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 enter- 
prize. 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 attach- 
ments, 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 improved by inclining them to 
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. 
