176 LOVE OF OFFSPRING IN BIRDS. 



dons our homesteads, and returns to its solitudes and 

 heaths. 



The extraordinary change of character which many 

 creatures exhibit, from timidity to boldness and rage, 

 from stupidity to art and stratagem, for the preservation 

 of a helpless offspring, seems to be an established ordi- 

 nation of Providence, actuating in various degrees most 

 of the races of animated beings ; and we have few ex- 

 amples of this influencing principle more obvious than 

 this of the missel bird, in which a creature addicted to 

 solitude and shyness will abandon its haunts, ad asso- 

 ciate with those it fears, to preserve its offspring from 

 an enemy more merciless and predaceous still. The 

 love of offspring, one of the strongest impressions given 

 to created beings, and inseparable from their nature, is 

 ordained by the Almighty as the means of preservation 

 under helplessness and want. Dependent, totally de- 

 pendent as is the creature, for every thing that can 

 contribute to existence and support, upon the great 

 Creator of all things, so are new-born feebleness and 

 blindness dependent upon the parent that produced 

 them ; and to the latter is given intensity of love, to 

 overbalance the privations and sufferings required from 

 it. This love, that changes the nature of the timid and 

 gentle to boldness and fury, exposes the parent to injury 

 and death, from which its wiles and cautions do not 

 always secure it ; and in man the avarice of possession 

 will at times subdue his merciful and better feelings. 

 Beautifully imbued with celestial justice and humanity 

 as all the ordinations which the Israelites received in 

 the wilderness were, there is nothing more impressive, 

 nothing more accordant with the divinity of our nature, 

 than the particular injunctions which were given in 

 respect to showing mercy to the maternal creature 

 cherishing its young, when by reason of its parental 

 regard it might be placed in danger. The eggs, the 

 offspring, were allowed to be taken ; but " thou shalt 

 in anywise let the dam go;" "thou shalt not, in one 

 day, kill both an ewe and her young." The ardent affec- 

 tion, the tenderness, with which I have filled the parent, 

 is in no way to lead to its injury or destruction : and 



