THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE., I3I 
[At the end of his Antiguities of Selborne White gives the 
following particulars respecting the old family tortoise, which 
may be appended here : — 
“ Because (he says) 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 a haha, but 
to stop and withdraw from the brink with the readiest precau- 
tion. 
“Though he loves warm weather, he avoids the hot sun ; 
because his thick shell, when once heated, would, as the poet 
says of solid armor, ‘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 armor, 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.” ] 
Tae 
