36 
DEVOTION OF THE HEN. 
nature. When the female bird has laid her eggs, number- 
ing from twelve to twenty, or more, which she generally 
does late in April, or early in May, in some slight holloAv 
in the ground, lined scantily with dry leaves or coarse 
grass, she will sit upon them steadily, and even suffer her- 
self to be touched and handled, without moving. It has 
sometimes come to pass that she has fallen a victim to that 
strong love of her offspring which is so remarkable a cha- 
racteristic of many members of the brute creation, and of 
the feathered tribes especially. 
An instance is recorded by Montagu of a hen Partridge, 
on the j)oint of hatching, wdiich w^as taken with her eggs in 
a hat to some distance, and continued to sit. Jesse tells us 
that a farmer discovered one of these birds sitting on its 
eggs in a grass-field, and that it suffered him to pass his 
hand frequently down its back without stirring or exhibit- 
ing fear ; on the contrary, when he touched it, the bird 
pecked at his hand. The same naturalist also speaks 
of a case of removal of the eggs, by the parent bird, from a 
situation where they were in danger of being broken by 
the ploughshare ; the nest v/as so close to one furrow, that 
the next would have imdoubtedly engulfed it : but when 
the plough returned to the spot from the other side of the 
field, in about twenty minutes, the eggs, numbering twenty- 
one, had been removed to the hedgeroAV, where the Part- 
ridge continued the work of incubation until she hatched 
nineteen poults, and bore off her brood in safety. She was 
probably assisted in the work of removal by the cock ; but, 
even with such assistance, one w^onders how the task was 
accomplished, the distance being about forty yards. And 
then, how did the bird know that the plough would return, 
and probably destroy her precious charge ? Instinct ap- 
proached very near to reason here. Bishop IMant's lines 
here recur to m.emory ; let us repeat them : — 
Here, as the swarthy mowers pass 
Slow through the tall and russet grass, 
In marshal I'd rank, from side to side, 
With circling stroke and measured stride, 
Before the scythe's wide sweeping sway 
The russet meadow's tall array 
