Collectanea de Diversis Rebus: Addresses and Papers. Eade Peter
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early habits are quite limited to the very finest weather; and it has seemed that in the matter of early activity, these animals always err, if at all, on the side of care and caution. They never leave their beds, or the neighbourhood of cover, if there is the slightest appearance of cloudiness or rain, at least until the day is well up; and for a large portion of their year the time for coming forth is not until eight, nine, or ten o’clock.
In electrical weather they are never lively, even though the day be intermittingly hot and bright; and at such times they are often almost lethargic, and show great indifference as to feeding.
They appear to have an extreme and instinctive objection to rain. Cloudy weather makes them dull. A passing cloud will make them discontinue eating. And the passage of a person or object suddenly between them and the sun will cause them as suddenly to draw in their heads. The dislike of clouds and their accompaniments is therefore a very marked instinct with them.
If not fed, they will go and help themselves, not to grass, but to some white Clover growing with the grass in the garden; or in default of this, to some of the garden plants – by preference the fleshy-leaved ones, such as the Echiveria or Sedum – after which they will retire to some warm place, and bask in the sun. They have a special liking for the warm vine-border in front of my greenhouse; and if the day be not too hot, they will tilt themselves up edgeways against the south wall of the greenhouse, or upon the edge of some tuft of flowers; or if the sun is too warm, they will then cover their heads up with leaves or earth on the bed, leaving their backs uncovered and exposed to the heat. (In this respect they seem to remind us of the habits of the tiger in his jungle.)
But they appear greatly to prefer being fed, and having their food found for them; indeed further, one, at least, much prefers to have his food held up to him, and almost put into his mouth when he opens it.
They take their food with a snapping movement; masticate it little if at all; and when feeding themselves, cut or tear it with the sharp-hooked anterior portion of the upper jaw.
In the hottest weather their appetites are very fine (thus they will eat several large Lettuce leaves at one time), and they bear a close relation to the warmth and clearness of the day, and the period of the year.
Their favourite foods are – besides Trefoil, already mentioned, and garden flowers – Lettuces, Dandelions, French Beans, etc. They are much attracted by yellow blossoms, and greedily eat those of the Dandelion and Buttercup. One of my creatures is very fond of sliced Apple, though the other will not eat it.
But the vegetable of which they are most fond is the Green Pea. Both of them will leave all other food for this, and they will consume at a meal a very considerable number of these Peas. Indeed, so fond are they of them, that they will follow a person accustomed to feed them with them about the garden, and will even try to clamber up his legs to get at them.
After sleeping and basking, they will again eat, and then again sleep once or twice more during the day; but in cooler or doubtful weather, they usually eat only once a day, and sometimes not at all.
Although those who hawk Tortoises about the streets will often tell purchasers to put them into their kitchens that they may eat Beetles and Cockroaches, I believe it to be well understood that they are intrinsically vegetable feeders; a position well put by Frank Buckland, who says that Tortoises put into a kitchen to eat Beetles will in due time die of starvation, and then most probably the Beetles will eat them. Certainly ours never eat anything but vegetable food. But a Tortoise in a neighbouring garden does every morning consume a very substantial quantity of bread and milk, or rather bread well-soaked in milk, and he appears to thrive well upon it. Our Tortoises never drink water, and are decidedly not tempted to drink by milk being offered to them.
Whatever the season, the Tortoises retire very early to bed. The warmth and sunniness of the day appear to regulate the exact time, but they rarely remain up after three or four o’clock, and in the cooler seasons, or on dull days, they retire much earlier.
They will go day after day to the same warm and leafy nook; and they have a habit on rising in the morning of simply turning out of bed, and lying for a time just outside of their bed-place, with their heads stupidly stretched out, or staring vacantly up into the air, before entering upon the serious business of the day.3
I should say their Memory is very strong. I have said they remember persons. They remember places they know, and if carried away will march straight off and back again to the place they wish to go to; and what is more remarkable, when brought out in the spring after seven or eight months’ hybernation, they do exactly as they did the day before they went to sleep; and will march off as direct to the old spots as if they had only had one day’s interregnum.
As a further instance of memory or intelligent knowledge, we are constantly in the habit, in the cooler weather, of putting them to bed under a mat in the greenhouse; and we very constantly find them, in the morning, waiting by the greenhouse door to be let out, clearly remembering that this is the place by which they will have to pass into the open air.
They do not appear to care much for each other’s society – (I believe they are both males) – but they do not fight. Neither are they respecters of each other’s persons, for they walk over each other’s backs in the most indifferent way, if either happens to be in the direct road of the other’s progression.
One of the creatures is certainly fond of climbing. We have several times found him mounted (when shut up in the greenhouse) upon the other’s back; or upon an inverted flower-pot; and once we found him in a most pitiable condition through the exercise of these scandent aspirations. He had evidently been endeavouring to climb up some flower sticks placed slantingly against the wall, and in doing this he had turned over upon his axis; and when we found him he was reclining upon his back against these sticks, and standing upon one hind foot, whilst with the other, and with his fore feet, he was making frantic efforts to reinstate himself in a more comfortable position. As so placed he reminded us irresistibly and ludicrously of a huge toad held up by a fore leg.
Our Tortoises have certainly got tempers. They hiss when they are meddled with. They resist and try to scratch, or otherwise hurt, when lifted up from their place of repose; and they exhibit distinct petulance, and will jerk themselves forward out of your hand when you are again placing them upon the ground.
They are also very particular when going to their evening places of repose, and most distinctly refuse to go to rest in the place in which you try to place them, however comfortable this may appear to be, even if they have previously selected this spot for themselves day after day.
Mr. Darwin speaks of a large kind of Tortoise which is reputed to be able to walk at the rate of sixty yards in ten minutes; i. e., three hundred and sixty yards in the hour, or four miles a day. I have twice timed the rate of progress of one of my Tortoises. Once it walked ten feet in the minute, and another time twenty feet in the minute. This latter is at the rate of twelve hundred feet, or four hundred yards, in the hour; or of a mile in between four and five hours. This truly is not quite the ordinary rate of the hare’s progress, but I think they can cross a certain small distance of ground much more rapidly than we should at first suspect.
Once more. These creatures distinctly grow in size from year to year. Our two measure respectively seven and seven and a half inches in length. And they must have elongated fully an inch in the three and four years of our possession.
I weighed them this year, on May 29th, soon after their waking up for the summer, and again on September 8th. They weighed in May, 2 lbs. 7½ ozs. and 2 lbs. 3½ ozs.; a fortnight ago they weighed 2 lbs. 10 ozs. and 2 lbs. 5 ozs.; having thus gained in weight through their summer feeding 2½ ozs. and 1½ ozs. respectively.4
When the due period arrives in which they naturally bury themselves, and so surround themselves with earthen bulwarks, and then retire for the winter into their carapace castles, we put them down into a cupboard in the cellar.
Mr. White remarks that his Tortoise did not bury itself into the ground before November 1st, but ours are cold and torpid, and quite ready to hybernate by the first week in October. Probably the different latitude and longitude of Selborne and Norwich may account for
It is noticeable how they both do the same thing, in a precisely similar way, at the same time, and this applies even to the attitudes they assume.
April, 1887. They have just been again weighed, after their winter’s hybernation; and their weight now is, respectively, 2 lbs. 7½ ozs. and 2 lbs. 2½ ozs. Thus each of them has lost 2½ ozs. in the seven months of quietude.