WATER FOWL. 



destroys its instructor : animals of the duck kind 

 also follow their appetites, not their tutor, an4 

 come to all their various perfections without any 

 guide. All the arts possessed by man, are the 

 result of accumulated experience ; all the arts of 

 inferior animals are self-taught, and scarce one 

 acquired by imitation. 



It is usual with the good women to lay duck- 

 eggs under a hen, because she hatches them better 

 than the original parent would have done. The 

 duck seems to be a heedless, inattentive mother ; 

 she frequently leaves her eggs till they spoil, and 

 even seems to forget that she is intrusted with the 

 charge : she is equally regardless of them when 

 excluded j she leads them to the pond, and thinks 

 she has sufficiently provided for her offspring when 

 she has shown them the water. Whatever ad- 

 vantages may be procured by coming near the 

 house, or attending in the yard, she declines 

 them all ; and often lets the vermin, who haunt 

 the waters, destroy them, rather than bring them 

 to take shelter nearer home. The hen is a nurse 

 of a very opposite character ; she broods with the 

 utmost assiduity, and generally brings forth a 

 young one from every egg committed to her 

 charge : she does not lead her younglings to the 

 water indeed, but she watchfully guards them, 

 when there, by standing at the brink. Should 

 the rat or the weasel attempt to seize them, the 

 hen can give them protection ; she leads them to 

 the house when tired with paddling, and rears up 

 the supposititious brood, without ever suspecting 

 that they belong to another. 



