SHELTERING OF THE YOUNG. 179 



milk of their mother with the rats. Two of the 

 kittens were afterwards destroyed, for fear of ex- 

 hausting- the cat, by so numerous a family. The 

 man said that the cat was a good mouser ; but ad- 

 mitted that he had taught her to abstain from white 

 mice, which he had been in the habit of keeping. 



" As the cat had kittens," Mr. Broderip adds, 

 '" on which to exercise her maternal tenderness, and 

 which must have sucked sufficiently to prevent any 

 thing like bodily inconvenience, it is hard to account 

 for this perversion of instinct. Is it that, at such 

 times, the all-powerful and uncontrollable cryopyt/ is 

 exercised indiscriminately upon every young living 

 creature which is thrown upon the mercy of the 

 new mother for protection and nourishment, and 

 is capable of enjoying her care ? The cases of the 

 hedge-sparrow or wagtail and the young cuckoo, of 

 young ducks which are hatched by hens, and even 

 substituted for their own broods on their loss or 

 failure, nay, the very assiduity with which a hen 

 will sit upon a ball or two of whitening, would all 

 seem to point this way*." 



The similar account in White's Selborne, which 

 the preceding is given by Mr. Broderip to illustrate, 

 is too striking to be omitted. " My friend," says 

 White, u had a little helpless leveret brought to him, 

 which the servants fed with milk in a spoori, and 

 about the same time his cat kittened, arid the young 

 were despatched and buried. The hare was soon 

 lost and supposed to be gone the way of most fond- 

 lings, to be killed by some dog or cat. However, in 

 about a fortnight, as the master Was sitting in his 

 garden in the dusk of the evening, he observed his 

 cat, with tail erect, trotting towards him, and calling 

 with little short inward notes of complacency, such 

 * Zool. Journ. ii. 21. 



