31 G 
SIR PKTER EADE ON TORTOISES. 
lY. 
TOETOISES. 
Ev Sir Peter Eade, j\].D. 
Read 28th September, 1886. 
I HAVE almost to a^iologize for bringing before so learned and 
critical a Society as this, the few notes and observations I have 
made upon the manners and customs ” of my pair of common 
land Tortoises, partly because I feel that much of what I have 
observed must also have been observed by other members of this 
Society ; and still more because (as is well known) that incompar- 
able master both of observation and expression — White of 
Selborne — has already noted, and placed upon record, the most 
interesting of the liabits of tliese creatures. 
Mine is thus necessarily a “ twice-told tale.” I can only hope 
that the never flagging interest which naturalists take in the 
observation or record of the habits of animals, will suffice to make 
them bear with me for the short time I shall detain them. 
I have in my garden two of the common land Tortoises (Testudo 
Grceca), and these have been in my possession three and four years 
respectively. 
I purchased them from the barrow of a hawker in Norwich 
streets, in two following years, — one being a little larger than the 
other, and they are in consequence known by tbe names of the 
old rjentleman and the young gentleman. 
Although selected as the best from a number of others, I am 
sorry to say that they both appeared to bo ill or greatly injured, 
and it was a considerable time before they recovered sulliciently 
cither to begin to take food, or to move about with their proper 
freedom, or with the well-known liveliness of 'J'ortoiscs ! 
