Dixon : A Few Remarks on Protective Instinct. ] 35 



practising its varied motions, does not admire the little actor, and, if 

 possessed of any feeling, leave her victorious, to attend to her 

 domestic cares in peace ? Although all these protective motions 

 claim admiration from a lover of animated nature^ yet the power now 

 under notice is perhaps most readily manifest to a casual observer. 



Let us stroll down this sandy shore. Observe yon little sandpiper 

 which has just started up from our feet, endeavouring to make us 

 concentrate all our attention upon herself ; fearlessly she reels and 

 tumbles before us, while her mate from yonder group of rocks is en- 

 couraging her with notes of condolence. Why is she so anxious ? Her 

 treasured eggs are on the sandy shore, and the little sand-bird is trying 

 to the utmost those powers which an All-wise Providence leads her to 

 manifest for the safety of her one and all-absorbing care. Now we 

 will repair to the barren waste ; here the lap-wing, driven by resistless 

 impulse, will flutter with seemingly broken wings, now tumbling, now 

 running, uttering her mournful cries, but in all these motions the 

 watchful bird is endeavouring to lead us from her home on this dreary 

 moor. Why is she so anxious ? Disregard the motions of the 

 watchful mother, and we shall probably find, after a scrutinising 

 search, her eggs on some slight eminence, or her little ones nestling 

 closely in the friendly shelter of the scanty herbage. The young 

 themselves, even at this early age, manifest no slight degree of 

 instinct for their self-preservation. These alluring motions are not 

 confined to the female alone, for her mate, in another direction, is 

 performing various aerial gyrations which would lead an inexperienced 

 person to believe that the bird is circling over those treasures it is 

 seeking to defend by so many artful and varied antics. 



Pugnacious motions.- — These motions form one of the most decided 

 and marked of all the divisions. With man, they almost if not 

 entirely fail, but against their natural enemies this peculiar power is 

 of effectual service. As a homely type of this protective instinct we 

 will take the missel-thrush. How admirably she defends her treasure 

 from all predaceous animals, flying at them with such fury as to 

 compel them to beat a hasty retreat from the neighbourhood of her 

 home. Such is the impelling power of this instinct, that the birds, 

 with only the safety of their nests in view, will attack, and come off 

 victorious, even when matched against that little tyrant the sparrow- 

 h«,wk. Notice yon magpie coming suspiciously near the nest of the 

 missel-thrush — bent upon plunder, it is evident. How craftily he 

 approaches ! Ah ! the watchful parent missel-thrush has descried him, 

 and with a note of defiance which echoes through the silent woods, 



