In April, 1780, White again writes to Mr. Barrington :—" The obi tortoise that I have so often mentioned to you is become my property.
I dug it out of its winter dormitory in Msreh last, when it was enough awakened to express its resentment by hissing ; and, packing it in a box with earth, carried it eighty miles in post-chaises. The rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused it, that when I turned it out on a border, it walked twice down to the bottom of my garden ; however, in the evening, the weather being cold, it buried itself in the loose mould, and continues still concealed. As it will be under my eye, I shall now have an opportunity of enlarging my observations on its mode of life and propensities, and perceive already that, towards the time of coming forth, it opens a breathing-place in the ground near its head, requiring, I conclude. a freer respiration as it becomes more alive. This creature not only goes under the earth from the middle of November to the middle of April, but sleeps great part of the summer ; for it goes to bed in the longest days at four in the afternoon, and often does not stir in the morning till late. Besides, it retires to rest for every shower, and does not move at all in wet days. When one reflects on the state of this strange being, it is a matter of wonder to find that Providence should bestow such a pro fusion of days, such a seeming waste of longevity, on a reptile that appears to relish it so little as to squander more than two-thirds of its existence in a joyless stupor, and be lost to all sensation for months together in the profoundest of slumbera.
" While I was writing this letter a moist and warm afternoon, with the thermometer at 50°, brought forth troops of shell-snails ; and, at the same juncture, the tortoise heaved up the mould and put out its head ; and the next morning came forth, as it were raised from the dead, and walked about till four in the afternoon. This was a curious coincidence—a very amusing occurrence—to see such a similarity of feeling betweeu the two so the Greeks call the shell snail and the tortoise." Again White reverts to the "old family tortoise " in the same letter :—" 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 welt ;' and has so much discernment as not to fall down an haha, but to stop and withdraw from the briuk with the readiest precaution. Though ho loves warm weather, he avoids the hot sun, because his thick shell, when once heated, would, as the poet says of solid armour, 'scald with safety.' lie therefore spends the more sultry hours under the umbrella of a large cabbage-leaf, or amidst the waving forests of all asparagus-bod. 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 ember reseed reptile : to be cued in a suit of pondeisoue armour which he cannot lay aside ; to bo 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, explores 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 attachments, which transport him beyond his usual gravity, and induce him to forget for a time his ordinary solemn deportment" Mr. Darwin in his `Journal' describes the habits of Testudo Indica, or rather one of the species that have been confounded under that name, and, not improbably, the Testudo nigra of Quoy and Gaimard. He speaks of their numbers as being very great, as indeed they always seem, to have been, for he quotes Dampier, who states that they are so numerous that five or six hundred men might subsist on them for several months without any other sort of provisions, and describes them as being so extraordinarily large and fat that no pullet eats more pleasantly. The day on which Mr. Darwin visited the little craters in the Galapagos Archipelago was glowing hot, and the scram bling over the rough surface and through the intricate thickets was very fatiguing. "But," says Mr. Darwin, "I was well repaid by the Cyclopian scene. In my walk I met two large tortoises, each of which must have weighed at least two hundred pounds. One was eating a piece of cactus, and when I approached it looked at me, and then quietly walked away ; the other gave a deep hiss and drew in his head. These huge reptiles, surrounded by the black lava, the leafless shrubs, and large cacti, appeared to my fancy like some antediluvian animals." Mr. Darwin states his belief that these tortoises are found in all the islands of the Archipelago ; certainly in the greater number, and thus continues his description :—" They frequent, in preference, the high damp parts, but likewise inhabit the lower and arid districts. Some individuals grow to an immense size. Mr. Lawson, an English man, who had, at the time of our visit, charge of the colony, told us that he had seen several so large that it required six or eight men to lift them from the ground, and that some had afforded as much as two hundred pounds of meat. The old males are the largest, the females rarely growing to so great a size. The male can readily be distinguished from the female by the greater length of its taiL The tortoises which live on those islands where there is no water, or in the lower and arid parts of the others, chiefly feed on the succulent cactus. Those which frequent the higher and damp regions eat the leaves of various trees, a kind of berry (called guayavita) which is acid and austere, and likewise a pale green filamentous lichen, that bangs in tresses from the boughs of the trees.