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 mar- 

 vellous that Romulus and Remus, in their infant 

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

 poor little suckling leveret should be fostered and 

 cherished by a bloody grimalkin. 



" — — — — viridi foetam Mavortis in antro 

 Procubuisse lupam : geminos huic ubera circum 

 Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem 

 Impavidos ; illam tereti cervice reflexam 

 Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere lingu^," 



(ViRG. u^En. viii. 630-634.) 



Or, as Christopher Pitt renders the Roman poet : — 



"Here in a verdant cave's embowering shade, 

 The fostering wolf and martial twins were laid ; 

 The indulgent mother, half reclined along, 

 Look'd fondly back, and formed them with her tongue." 



[Again a bo}^ has taken three little squirrels in 

 their nest, or drey, as it is called in these parts. 

 These small creatures he put under the care of a cat 

 who had lately lost her kittens, and finds that she 

 nurses and suckles them with the same assiduity and 

 affection as if they were her own offspring. 



So many people went to see the little squirrels 

 suckled by a cat, that the foster-mother became jeal- 

 ous of her charge, and in pain for their safety ; and 

 therefore hid them over the ceiling, where one died. 

 This circumstance shows her affection for these fond- 



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