SAGACITY OP THE WILLOW-WREN. 149 



A further 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 parti- 

 cularly 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 any impertinent 

 intruder. 



A still more remarkable mixture of sagacity and instinct oc- 

 curred to me one day as my people were pulling off the lining of 

 a hotbed, 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 0Topy;, 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.f 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 pas- 

 sions let loose, are capable of any enormity : but why the parental 

 feelings of brutes, that usually flow in one most uniform tenour, 

 should sometimes be so extravagantly diverted, I leave to abler 

 philosophers than myself to determine. I am, &c. 



* 1 have observed the same in its congener the water-campagnol (arvicola aquatica), only that 

 the young were in this instance so large that I was very much surprised to find them still de- 

 pendent on their parent, the motions of which they somewhat obstructed. Bats fly about with 

 the young attached to their teats, and often when the latter have attained a considerable size. 



ED. 



t The same is commonly observed in rabbits, and in the white mice often kept by boys. ED. 



