214 The Natural History of Se I borne 



for breath, they screened off the heat from their suffering off- 

 spring. 



A farther instance I once saw of notable sagacity in a willow- 

 wren, which had built in a bank in my fields. This bird a 

 friend and myself had observed as she sat in her nest ; but 

 were particularly careful not to disturb her, though we saw she 

 eyed us with some degree of jealousy. Some days after as we 

 passed that way we were desirous of remarking how this brood 

 went on ; but no nest could be found, till I happened to take 

 up a large bundle of long green moss, as it were, carelessly 

 thrown over the nest in order to dodge the eye of an im- 

 pertinent intruder. 



A still more remarkable mixture of sagacity and instinct 

 occurred to me one day as my people were pulling off the 

 lining of an hot-bed, in order to add some fresh dung. From 

 out of the side of this bed leaped an animal with great agility 

 that made a most grotesque figure ; nor was it without great 

 difficulty that it could be taken ; when it proved to be a large 

 white-bellied field-mouse with three or four young clinging to 

 her teats by their mouths and feet. It was amazing that 

 the desultory and rapid motions of this dam should not 

 oblige her litter to quit their hold, especially when it ap- 

 peared that they were so young as to be both naked and 

 blind ! 



To these instances of tender attachment, many more of 

 which might be daily discovered by those that are studious of 

 nature, may be opposed that rage of affection, that monstrous 

 perversion of the aTopyrj, which induces some females of the 

 brute creation to devour their young because their owners 

 have handled them too freely, or removed them from place to 

 place ! Swine, and sometimes the more gentle race of dogs 

 and cats, are guilty of this horrid and preposterous murder. 

 When I hear now and then of an abandoned mother that 

 destroys her offspring, I am not so much amazed; since 

 reason perverted, and the bad passions let loose, are capable 

 of any enormity; but why the parental feelings of brutes, 

 that usually flow in one most uniform tenor, should some- 



