3 O THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
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 13th of November, 
yet the work remained unfinished. Harsher weather, and 
frosty mornings, would have quickened its operations. No 
part of its behavior 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, shuffling away on the first 
sprinklings, and running its head up in accorner. 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, 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 year. When first awakened 
it eats nothing; nor again in the autumn before it retires : 
through the height of the summer it feeds voraciously, devour- 
ing 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! 
P.S.—In about three days after I left Sussex the tortoise 
retired into the ground under the hepaticas. 
1 Tsaiah i. 3. 
