132 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



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 imperti- 

 nent 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 agility 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 aTopyrj, 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 some- 

 times the more gende 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 

 myself to determine. 



I am, etc. 



