Nature's riddles, or, the battle of the beasts / H.W. Shepheard-Walwyn.

  • Hugh Wallwyn Shepheard-Walwyn
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Nature's riddles, or, the battle of the beasts / H.W. Shepheard-Walwyn. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    suit of armour, though of quite a different kind from that of the hedgehog, for whereas the hedgehog owes his safety to the bristling wall of prickles with which he is surrounded, the tortoise, on the other hand, has a shell which is composed of plates of horn, tough and impenetrable, almost as though they were of the finest steel, systematically arranged so as to fit in with one another exactly ; and the whole thus forms a covering calculated to defy the attacks of his strongest antagonists ; add to this the fact that he has the power of drawing in Ihs head and front legs at the first sign of danger, protecting the opening with the latter, which are also hard and horny, and you will realise how absolutely invincible are his means of defence. To illustrate the extraordinary toughness of a tortoise’s shell, I will mention an incident that came within the experience of a friend of mine. My friend was out for a bicycle ride one afternoon, and on approaching an unusually steep hill he dis- mounted in order to walk up it. In front of him was a heavily laden waggon drawn by two powerful horses, and when half-way up the hill the driver stopped his horses and drew them across the road, as waggoners have a way of doing, in order to rest them. He then produced from the interior of the waggon an object which in the distance my friend took to be a large brick, and this he put under one of the