174 AFFECTIONS OF BIRDS. 



violence of this affection more wonderful than the 

 shortness of its duration. Thus every hen is in 

 her turn the virago of the yard, in proportion to 

 the helplessness of her brood ; and will fly in the 

 face of a dog or a sow in defence of those chickens, 

 which in a few weeks she will drive before her 

 with relentless cruelty. 



This affection sublimes the passions, quickens 

 the invention, and sharpens the sagacity of the 

 brute creation. Thus a hen, just become a 

 mother, is no longer that placid bird she used 

 to be ; but, with feathers standing on end, wings 

 hovering, and clucking note, she runs about like 

 one possessed. Dames will throw themselves in 

 the way of the greatest danger in order to avert 

 it from their progeny. Thus a partridge will 

 tumble along before a sportsman in order to draw 

 away the dogs from her helpless covey. In the 

 time of nidification, the most feeble birds will 



lethargy if any person approached even at a distance of 

 twelve feet. 



" About the beginning of October, or latter end of Sep- 

 tember, it began to immure itself, and had for that pur- 

 pose for many years selected a particular angle of the 

 garden; it entered in an inclined plane, excavating the 

 earth in the manner of the mole ; the depth to which it 

 penetrated varied with the character of the approaching 

 season, being from one to two feet, according as the winter 

 was mild or severe. It may be added, that for nearly a 

 month prior to this entry into its dormitory, it refused all 

 sustenance whatever. The animal emerged about the end 

 of April, and remained for at least a fortnight before it 

 ventured on taking any species of food. Its skin was not 

 perceptibly cold : its respiration, entirely effected through 

 the nostrils, was languid. I visited the animal, for the 

 last time, on the 9th of June, 1813, during a thunder storm : 

 it then lay under the shelter of a cauliflower, and appa- 

 rently torpid." MURRAY'S Experimental Researches. 

 W. J. 



