148 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



in defence of those chickens, which in a few weeks she will drive 

 before her with relentless cruelty. 



This affection sublimes the passions, quickens the invention, 

 and sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation. Thus a hen, 

 just become a mother, is no longer that placid bird she used to 

 be, but with feathers standing an end, wings hovering, and 

 clocking note, she runs about like one possessed. Dams will 

 throw themselves in the way of the greatest danger in order to 

 avert it from their progeny. Thus a partridge will tumble along 

 before a sportsman in order to draw away the dogs from her 

 helpless covey. In the time of nidification the most feeble birds 

 will assault the most rapacious. All the hirundines of a village 

 are up in arms at the sight of a hawk, whom they will perse- 

 cute till he leaves that district. A very exact observer has often 

 remarked that a pair of ravens nesting in the rock of Gibraltar 

 would suffer no vulture or eagle to rest near their station, but 

 would drive them from the hill with an amazing fury : even the 

 blue thrush at the season of breeding would dart out from the 

 clefts of the rocks to chase away the kestril, or the sparrow- 

 hawk. If you stand near the nest of a bird that has young, she 

 will not be induced to betray them by an inadvertent fondness, 

 but will wait about at a distance with meat in her mouth for an 

 hour together. 



Should I further corroborate what I have advanced above by 

 some anecdotes which I probably may have mentioned before in 

 conversation, yet you will, I trust, pardon the repetition for the 

 sake of the illustration. 



The flycatcher of the zoology (the stoparola of Ray), builds 

 every year in the vines that grow on the walls of my house. A 

 pair of these little birds had one year inadvertently placed their 

 nest on a naked bough, perhaps in a shady time, not being aware 

 of the inconvenience that followed. But a hot sunny season 

 coming on before the brood was half fledged, the reflection of 

 the wall became insupportable, and must inevitably have de- 

 stroyed the tender young, had not affection suggested an expe- 

 dient, and prompted the parent-birds to hover over the nest all 

 the hotter hours, while with wings expanded, and mouths gaping 

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

 spring.* 



* A similar instance is mentioned in the third series of Mr Jesse's "Gleanings in Natural 

 History." A beautiful foreign finch, that had paired in confinement with a domestic Canary, 

 used in this manner often to shelter his mate from the sultry rays of the sun. ED. 



