THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 141 



work, it will immediately cease its operations. 

 It is a most useful animal, although many 

 farmers are so foolish as not to have found it 

 out. 



But it would be an endless employment if I 

 were to enter fully into the various ways in 

 which a benevolent Providence has provided for 

 the wants of His creatures by their peculiar 

 formation. I will now endeavour to give some 

 instances of those peculiar instincts which some 

 animals possess, and which tend to their self- 

 preservation, or that of their young. For in- 

 stance, when a female otter has been attacked 

 in company with her young one, she will clasp 

 it with her forefeet and plunge beneath the sur- 

 face. Instinct tells her, that although she can 

 remain for some time under water herself, her 

 young one cannot, and, therefore, she is forced 

 to rise again very soon. Her love for it is so 

 strong, that if it is taken its cries bring her to 

 the side of the boat, where she often shares the 

 fate of her cub. 



When rooks are feeding, they always place a 

 sentinel on a tree to give an alarm in case of 

 danger. Fieldfares, and other birds which col- 

 lect together in large flocks, do the same. In- 



