_April 12th_, 1772.
Dear Sir,--While I was in Sussex last autumn, my residence was at the
village near Lewes, from whence I had formerly the pleasure of writing to
you. On the 1st November I remarked that the old tortoise, formerly
mentioned, began first to dig the ground in order to the forming its
hybernaculum, which it had fixed on just beside a great tuft of
hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground with its fore-feet, and throws it
up over its back with its hind; but the motion of its legs is
ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour-hand of a clock, and
suitable to the composure of an animal said to be a whole month in
performing one feat of copulation. Nothing can be more assiduous than
this creature night and day in scooping the earth, and 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
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, shuffling 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, 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, 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!