AFFECTION IN BIRDS. 127 



We now begin to expect our vernal migration of ringousels 

 every week. Persons worthy of credit assure me, that ring- 

 ousels were seen at Christmas, 1770, in the forest of Bere, on 

 the southern verge of this county. Hence we may conclude, 

 that their migrations are only internal, and not extended to the 

 continent southward, if they do at first come at all from the 

 northern parts of this island only, and not from the north of 

 Europe. Come from whence they will, it is plain, from the 

 fearless disregard that they shew for men or guns, that they 

 have been little accustomed to places of much resort. Navi- 

 gators mention, that, in the Isle of Ascension, and other such 

 desolate districts, birds are so little acquainted with the human 

 form, that they settle on men's shoulders, and have no more 

 dread of a sailor than they would have of a goat that was 

 grazing. A young man at Lewes, in Sussex, assured me, that, 

 about seven years ago, ringousels abounded so about that town 

 in the autumn, that he killed sixteen himself in one afternoon : 

 he added farther, that some had appeared since in every 

 autumn ; but he could not find that any had been observed 

 before the season in which he shot so many. I myself have 

 found these birds in little parties in the autumi , cantoned all 

 along the Sussex downs, wherever there were shrubs and 

 bushes, from Chichester to Lewes ; particularly in the autumn 

 of 1770. 



LETTER LII. 

 TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. 



SELBORNE, March 26, 1773. 



DEAR SIR, The more I reflect on the tfrogy?} of animals, 

 the more I am astonished at its effects. Nor is the 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.* 



* The hen will attack any animal whatever in defence of her chickens ; 

 and has been known to lose her own life in attempting to save the life, 

 as she thought, of a brood of young ducklings which she had hatched, on 

 their entering the water. 



A singular instance of strong affection in the feathered tribe is related 

 by Mr Jesse : " A gentleman in my neighbourhood," says he, ' had 



