are undoubtedly the most nimble of all the species: and when the male pursues the female in amorous chase, they then go beyond their usual speed, and exert a rapidity almost too quick for the eye to follow.

After this circumstantial detail of the life and discerning 5 σTоpy of the swallow, I shall add, for your farther amusement, an anecdote or two not much in favor of her sagacity:

A certain swallow built for two years together on the handles of a pair of garden-shears, that were stuck up 10 against the boards in an out-house, and therefore must have her nest spoiled whenever that implement was wanted: and, what is stranger still, another bird of the same species built its nest on the wings and body of an owl that happened by accident to hang dead and dry 15 from the rafter of a barn. This owl, with the nest on its wings, and with eggs in the nest, was brought as a curiosity worthy the most elegant private museum in Great Britain. The owner, struck with the oddity of the sight, furnished the bringer with a large shell, or conch, desiring him to fix 20 it just where the owl hung: the person did as he was ordered, and the following year a pair, probably the same pair, built their nest in the conch, and laid their eggs.

The owl and the conch make a strange grotesque appearance, and are not the least curious specimens in that 25 wonderful collection of art and nature.

Thus is instinct in animals, taken the least out of its way, an undistinguishing, limited faculty; and blind to every circumstance that does not immediately respect self-preservation, or lead at once to the propagation or 30 support of their species.

I am,

With all respect, etc., etc.

While I was in Sussex last autumn my residence was at the village near Lewes, from whence I had formerly the 5 pleasure of writing to you. On the first of 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 forefeet, and 10 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. 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 15 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 thirteenth of November, yet the work remained unfinished. Harsher weather, and frosty mornings, would have 20 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 *Op. cit. pp. 129-30, 220-21

If

lady dressed in all her best attire, shuffling away on the first sprinklings, and running its head up in a corner. 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 5 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 10 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 15 waited on it for more than thirty years, it hobbles toward 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 20 feeds it, and is touched with the feelings of gratitude!

I am, etc., etc. P. S. In about three days after I left Sussex the tortoise retired into the ground under the hepatica.

LETTER L

TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Dear Sir:

Selborne, April 21, 1780. 25

The old Sussex tortoise, that I have mentioned to you so often, is become my property. I dug it out of its winter

dormitory in March last, when it was enough awakened to express its resentments 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, 5 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 oppor10 tunity of enlarging my observations on its mode of life, and propensities; and perceive already that, toward 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 15 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 20 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 profusion of days, such a seeming waste of longevity, on a reptile that appears to relish it so little 25 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 slumbers.

While I was writing this letter, a moist and warm afternoon, with the thermometer at 50, brought forth 30 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 feelings between the two pepéoikol! for so the Greeks call both the shell-snail and the tortoise.

Summer birds are, this cold and backward spring, unusually late: I have seen but one swallow yet. This conformity with the weather convinces me more and 5 more that they sleep in the winter.

SUGGESTIONS: These are examples of description from a series of observations very close and detailed, if not thoroughly scientific from a modern point of view. Note the rather "oldfashioned" effect of the style. To what peculiarities of words and sentences is this due? Note the charmingly sympathetic treatment of "The Tortoise."

ADAPTED SUBJECTS

The habits of some bird, or animal, or insect with which you are familiar.

An account of some pet animal of your childhood.

NEA

THE PLAINS OF PATAGONIA*

W. H. HUDSON

TEAR the end of Darwin's famous narrative of the voyage of the Beagle there is a passage which, for me has a very special interest and significance. It is as follows, and the italicization is mine: "In calling up 10 images of the past, I find the plains of Patagonia frequently cross before my eyes; yet these plains are pronounced by all to be most wretched and useless. They are characterized only by negative possessions; without habitations, without water, without trees, without mountains, 15 they support only a few dwarf plants. Why, then-and the

*Reprinted from Idle Days in Patagonia, Chapter 13, by permission of D. Appleton & Company.