134, NATURAL HISTORY. 



this being in carnivorous animals in much less quan- 

 tity than others, the female often carries home her 

 ]>rey alive, that its blood may supply the deficiencies 

 f nature jn herself. 



Whatever be the natural disposition of animals at 

 other times, they all acquire new courage and fierce- 

 ness in defence of their young; even the mildest, if 

 wild, will then resist and threaten the invader; but 

 such as have force, and subsist by rapine, are at such 

 times uncommonly terrible. 



But their care in the protection of their young, is 

 not greater than their sagacity inchusing such month* 

 for bringing forth, as afford the greatest quantity of 

 provision, suitable to the age and appetite of each pe- 

 culiar kind. In general they couple at such times as 

 that the female shall bring forth in the mildest sea- 

 sons, such as the latter end of spring, or the beginning 

 of autumn. The wolf and the fox, for instance, cou- 

 ple in December, so that the time of gestation conti- 

 nuing five months, they may have their young in 

 April. The marc who goes eleven months, admits the 

 horse in summer, and foals in the beginning of May. 

 On the contrary, all those which lay up provisions for 

 the winter, as the beaver and marmot, couple in the 

 latter end of autumn, so as to have their young about 

 January, for which severe season they have already- 

 laid in the proper supplies. This provisional care in 

 every species of quadrupeds, of bringing forth at the 

 fittest seasons, may well excite human admiration; in 

 man the business of procreation is not marked by sea- 

 sons, but brutes seem to decline indeterminate copula- 

 tions, as if conducted less by appetite than the future 

 subsistence of their offspring. 



