BIRTH 9 



We gloze this fact over to ourselves by protesting that 

 the maternal instinct in animals is blind, injudicious, unreason- 

 ing ; but is this so always ? What then are we to say of 

 the hen pheasant who so long as she is sitting on eggs will 

 defend them against intruders, but when once the chickens 

 are out of the shell, changes her tactics utterly. Then she 

 realises that the only chance of safety to the scared little balls 

 of fluff which, at the first hint of danger, have scattered 

 from the nest, lies in her own life. Unless she is able to call 

 them back, when the danger shall be overpast, they must 

 perish miserably, lost in the long grass which is to them an 

 impenetrable tangled forest. 



So she risks cowardice, seeks shelter for herself, and in 

 so doing sacrifices for the time her very passion of immediate 

 protection itself. 



What this must mean to her limited mind surcharged 

 with motherhood none can realise who have not seen the 

 full fierce fury of this passion in a beast when roused to the 

 uttermost. 



I saw it once. A little palm squirrel dissatisfied with 

 the nest she had made in my handkerchief drawer chose a 

 new nursery beneath the spreading cornice of the wide old 

 Indian palace where I lived. When carrying one of her 

 babies thither, as a cat carries kittens, in her mouth, a crow 

 swooped on her. 



Never shall I forget that struggle or the mad abandon- 

 ment of rage with which when worsted she flung herself in 

 pursuit from carven gargoyle to projecting eave, from eave 

 to overhanging magnolia until it seemed as if she would 

 fling herself at the very sky, her fierce cry of impotent anger 

 and grief filling the quiet arcades of the orange garden below. 



