And I remember to have
made the same remark in former years, as I usually come to this
place annually about this time. The birds most common along the
coast at present are the stone-chatters, whin-chats, buntings,
linnets, some few wheatears, titlarks, etc. Swallows and house-
martins abound yet, induced to prolong their stay by this soft, still,
dry season.
A land-tortoise, which has been kept for thirty years in a little
walled court belonging to the house where I now am visiting,
retires under ground about the middle of November, and comes
forth again about the middle of April. When it first appears in the
spring it discovers very little inclination towards food; but in the
height of summer grows voracious: and then as the summer
declines its appetite declines; so that for the last six weeks in
autumn it hardly eats at all. Milky plants, such as lettuces,
dandelions, sow-thistles, are its favourite dish. In a neighbouring
village one was kept till by tradition it was supposed to be an
hundred years old.
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