jr>2 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



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 

 ^notions 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 I 



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-ropyrj, which induces 

 ■some females of the brute creation to devour their young 

 'Lecause their owners have handled them too freely, or 

 removed them from place to place ! Swine, and some- 

 •times 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 off- 

 spring, 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 tenor, should sometimes be so 

 ■extravagantly diverted, I leave to abler philosophers than 

 imyself to determine. 



I am, etc. 



LETTER XV 



Selborne, July 8, 1773. 



Dear Sir, 



:Some young men went down lately to a pond on the 

 verge of Wolmer-forest to hunt flappers, or young wild- 

 ducks, many of which they caught, and, among the rest, 

 some very minute yet well-fledged wild-fowls alive, which, 

 upon examination, I found to be teals. I did not know 



