OF SELBORNE. 257 



difficulty that it could be taken ; when it 

 proved to be a large white-bellied field- 

 mouse with three or four young clinging 

 to her teats by their mouths and feet. It 

 was amazing that the desultory and rapid 

 motions of this dam should not oblige her 

 litter to quit their hold, especially when it 

 appeared that they were so young as to 

 be both naked and blind ! 



To these instances of tender attachment, 

 many more of which might be daily disco- 

 vered by those that are studious of nature, 

 may be opposed that rage of affection, that 

 monstrous perversion of the a-ro^yri, which 

 induces some females of the brute creation 

 to devour their young because their owners 

 have handled them too freely, or removed 

 them from place to place ! Swine, and 

 sometimes the more gentle race of dogs and 

 cats, are guilty of this horrid and prepos- 

 terous murder. When I hear now and then 

 of an abandoned mother that destroys her 

 offspring, I am not so much amazed ; since 

 reason perverted, and the bad passions let 

 loose, are capable of any enormity : but 



VOL. I. s 



