176 LOVE OF OFFSPRING IN BIRDS. 
dons our homesteads, and returns to its solitudes and 
heaths. 
The extraordinary change of character which many 
creatures exhibit, from timidity to boldness and rage, 
from stupidity to art and stratagem, for the preservation 
of a helpless offspring, seems to be an established ordi- 
nation of Providence, actuating in various degrees most 
of the races of animated beings ; and we have few ex- 
amples of this influencing principle more obvious than 
this of the missel bird, in which a creature addicted to 
solitude and shyness will abandon its haunts, and asso- 
ciate with those it fears, to preserve its offspring from 
an enemy more merciless and predaceous still. The 
love of offspring, one of the strongest impressions given 
to created beings, and inseparable from their nature, is 
ordained by the Almighty as the means of preservation 
under helplessness and want. Dependent, totally de- 
pendent as is the creature, for every thing that can 
contribute to existence and support, upon the great 
Creator of all things, so are new-born feebleness and 
blindness dependent upon the parent that produced 
them; and to the latter is given intensity of love, to 
overbalance the privations and sufferings required from 
it. This love, that changes the nature of the timid and 
gentle to boldness and fury, exposes the parent to injury 
and death, from which its wiles and cautions do not 
always secure it ; and in man the avarice of possession 
will at times subdue his merciful and better feelings. 
Beautifully imbued with celestial justice and humanity 
as all the ordinations which the Israelites received in 
the wilderness were, there is nothing more impressive, 
nothing more accordant with the divinity of our nature, 
than the particular injunctions which were given in 
respect to showing mercy to the maternal creature 
cherishing its young, when by reason of its parental 
regard it might be placed in danger. The eggs, the 
offspring, were allowed to be taken; but “thou shalt 
in anywise let the dam go;” “thou shalt not, in one 
day, kill both an ewe and her young.” The ardent affec- 
tion, the tenderness, with which I have filled the parent, 
is in no way to lead to its injury or destruction : and 
