124 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



every year in the vines that grow on the walls of my house. A 

 pair of these little birds had one year inadvertently placed their 

 nest on a naked bough, perhaps in a shady time, not being aware 

 of the inconvenience that followed. But an hot sunny season 

 coming on before the brood was half fledged, the reflection of 

 the wall became insupportable, and must inevitably have destroyed 

 the tender young, had not affection suggested an expedient, and 

 prompted the parent-birds to hover over the nest all the hotter 

 hours, while with wings expanded, and mouths gaping for breath, 

 they screened off the heat from their suffering offspring. 



A farther instance I once saw of notable sagacity in a willow- 

 wren, which had built in a bank in my fields. This bird a friend 

 and myself had observed as she sat in her nest ; but were 

 particularly careful not to disturb her, though we saw she eyed 

 us with some degree of jealousy. Some days after as we passed 

 that way we were desirous of remarking how this brood went on ; 

 but no nest could be found, till I happened to take up a large 

 bundle of long green moss, as it were, carelessly thrown over the 

 nest in order to dodge the eye of any impertinent intruder. 



A still more remarkable mixture of sagacity and instinct 

 occurred to me one day as my people were pulling off the 

 lining of an hotbed, in order to add some fresh dung. From out 

 of the side of this bed leaped an animal with great agihty that 

 made a most grotesque figure ; nor was it without great 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 discovered by those that are studious of nature, 

 may be opposed that rage of affection, that monstrous perversion 

 of the a-Topyq, 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 preposterous 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 why the 

 parental feelings of brutes, that usually flow in one most uniform 



