NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 205 



Why so cruel and sanguinary a Least as a cat, of the 

 ferocious genus of Felis, the viurium leo, as Linnseus calls 

 it, should be aflfected with any tenderness towards an 

 animal which is its natural prey, is not so easy to 

 determine. 



This strange affection probably was occasioned by that 

 desiderium, those tender maternal feelings, which the loss 

 of her kittens had awakened in her breast ; and by the 

 complacency and ease she derived to herself from the pro- 

 curing her teats to be drawn, which were too much distended 

 with milk, till, from habit, she became as much delighted 

 with this foundling as if it had been her real offspring. 



This incident is no bad solution of that strange circum- 

 stance which grave historians as well as the poets assert, of 

 exposed children being sometimes nurtured by female wild 

 beasts that probably had lost their young. For it is not 

 one whit more marvellous that Komulus and Remus, in 

 their infant state, should be nursed by a she-wolf, than that 

 a poor little sucking leveret should be fostered and cherished 

 by a bloody grimalkin. 



"... viridi foetam Mavortis in antro 

 Procubuisse lupam : geminos huic ubera circuni 

 Ludere peudentes pueros, et lambere. matrem 

 Impavidos ; illaiu tereti cervice reflexam 

 Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere lingu^."* 



The cave of Mars was dressed with mossy greens : 

 There by the wolf were laid the martial twins, 

 Intrepid on her swelling dugs they hung ; 

 The foster dam loU'd out her fawning tongue: 

 They suck'd secure, while bending back her head, 

 She lick'd their tender limbs ; and formed them as they fed." 

 — DiiYD. ViKG. ^Vi. viii. Hue 810. 



