SHELTERING OF THE YOUNG. 155 



consideration. A hen, for example, out of over- 

 anxiety to have her chickens near her, will not un- 

 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 sud- 

 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 frequently 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."f Albertus Magnus wit- 

 nessed a similar case ; and ^EHan 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. 



