A TORTOISE'S LONG LIFE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume IX, Issue 740, 27 January 1915, Page 7

A TORTOISE'S LONG LIFE.

Provertiallvi slowin every way, the tortoise is, perhaps,, the slowest of all animals to die. Storks about toads found living "in closed pockets of the solid rock may, be discounted, but that tortoises live to be\ 200 or 300 years old is believed. In the hall of the Episcopal Palace of Peterborough there is. preserved under glass tha shell of a large tortoise. Records proved that it sojourned at Peterborough in the time of seven Bishops : John* Thomas, 1747-57 ; Tdchard .. Terrick, 1757; Robert Lamb, 1764 ; John Hinchcliffe, 1769; Spencer Madan, 1794 ; John Parsons, 1813 ; Herbert Marsh, 1819-39.

Beside the shell lies the description, which says : "It is well ascertained that this tortoise must have lived 220 years. Bishop Parsons tad remembered it for more than sixty years, and had not recognised in it any visible change. It ate all kinds oi fruit and often a pint of gooseberries at a %ime, but it made the greatest havoc among the strawberries. It knew the gardenors well, anß would always keep near them when they were gathering fruit. It could bear almost any weight ; sometimes as much as eighteen stone was laid upon its back. About October it used to bury itself, in a particular spot of the garden, at the depth of one or two feet, according to the severity of the approaching season, where it would remain without food until the following April, when it would emerge from its hid' ing-place."