224 WHERE ROLLS THE OREGON 



three. She brought them up until they were able 

 to eat, meanwhile giving loads of pleasure; when 

 they became so large and frisky we could do 

 nothing with them, they would get into every- 

 thing. We kept one, which disappeared shortly 

 after. We think it had gotten with other squir- 

 rels, for sometimes when it did get out on the 

 trees the cat would sit under the tree for hours at 

 a time coaxing it back." 



I have known a hen, too, deprived of her 

 chickens, to adopt a litter of tiny kittens, brood- 

 ing them and guarding them as her own. 



The birds are structurally lower than the most 

 primitive of the mammals ; they are close kin to 

 the cold-hearted reptiles, yet it is the bird, the 

 mother bird, rather, that has touched our imagin- 

 ations as perhaps the most nearly human of all 

 wild things. 



" O Jerusalem, Jerusalem^ . . . how often would 

 I have gathered thy children together, even as a 

 hen gather 'eth her chickens under her wings, and ye 

 would not!" 



And an earlier Hebrew prophet, likening God's 

 harsh providences to the rending of a lion, hast- 

 ened on with the assurance that in his heart God 



