176 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



injure and even to kill some of their chickens through 

 awkwardness or inconsideration. A hen, for example, 

 out of over anxiety to have her chickens near her, 

 will not unfrequently set her foot upon some of them 

 so as to crush or mortally injure them ; and the same 

 accident often happens by her sitting 1 over them with 

 her body to keep them warm. Again, in scratching 

 to procure them food, she seems quite heedless where 

 she strikes with her foot; and we have observed in 

 several instances that she kicked the chickens be- 

 hind her, and laid them sprawling on the ground. 

 But independently of such accidents as these, no hen, 

 whatever may be her care, can prevent her brood from 

 often passing through sudden changes of tempera- 

 ture. She neither can nor ought to sit on them con- 

 stantly, as they must eat and run about; and in cold 

 or rainy weather, the damp ground must prove very 

 injurious even when she has them under her warm 

 wings. Hence it is that we frequently see a mother 

 not able to rear above three or four, out of a dozen 

 or more that she may have hatched. 



It has been recorded that cocks have sometimes 

 performed all these duties of the mother, when she 

 has been accidentally killed, or has abandoned her 

 brood. Aristotle tells us that he witnessed an in- 

 stance of this kind*; and Pliny says, " We have 

 heard that when a brood hen chanced to die, the 

 cocks were seen to go about with the chickens 

 one after another by turns, and to do every thing 

 like (o the very hen that hatched them, and all 

 that while to forbear once to crowf." Albertus 

 Magnus witnessed a similar case; and ./Elian even 

 mentions a cock which, on the death of the hen 

 while hatching, sat on the eggs and brought up 

 the chicks J. Willughby says, " We have beheld 



* Hist, Anim. ix. 49. f Holland's Transl. i. 299. 



; Wist, iv.29. ApudAldrovaridi, ii. 107. 



