SHELTERING OF THE YotNc. 155 
consideration. A hen, for example, ott of over 
anxiety to have her chickens near her, will not uns 
frequently set her foot upon some of them so as to 
crush or mortally injure them; and the same acci- 
dent often happens by her sitting over them with 
her body to keep them warm. Again, in scratching 
to procure them food, she seems quite heedless 
where she strikes with her foot; and we have ob- 
served in several instances that she kicked the 
chickens behind her, and laid them sprawling on the 
ground. But, independently of such accidents as 
these, no hen, whatever may be her care, can pre- 
vent her brood from often passing through suda 
den changes of temperature. She neither can nor 
ought to sit on them constantly, as they must eat 
and run about; and in cold or rainy weather, the 
damp ground must prove very injurious, even when 
she has them under her warm wings. Hence it is 
that we frg¢quently see a mother not able to rear 
above three or four out of a dozen or more that 
she may have hatched. 
It has been recorded that the male has sometimes 
performed all these duties of the mother, when she 
has been accidentally killed or has abandoned her 
brood. Aristotle tells us that he witnessed an in- 
stance of this kind;* and Pliny says, “ We have 
heard that when a brood hen chanced to die, the 
cocks were seen to go about with the chickens one 
after another by turns, and to do everything like to 
the very hen that hatched them, and all that while 
to forbear once to crow.”+ Albertus Magnus wit- 
nessed a similar case; and Allian even mentions a 
cock which, on the death of the hen while hatch- 
ing, sat on the eggs and brought up the chicks. 
Willoughby says, “ We have beheld more than once, 
not without pleasure and admiration, a capon bring- 
* Hist. Anim., ix., 49. t Holland’s Transl., i., 299, 
t Hist., iv., 29. Apud Aldrovandi, ii., 107, 
