The Natural History of Selborne 209 



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 impertinent 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 appeared 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 

 aropyri, 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 pre- 

 posterous 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 sometimes be so extravagantly 

 diverted, I leave to abler philosophers than myself to determine. 1 



I am, &c. 



1 It is now recognised that both in human beings and in the lower animals 

 such a perversion of instinct is brought about by any violent and overwhelming 

 emotion, fear, distress, or pain, affecting the mother immediately after the moment 

 of maternity. It is an emotional period, and the emotions it rouses are easily 

 turned into strange channels. ED. 



