- 132 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
LETTER XIV. 
SELBORNE, March 26th, 1773. 
The more I reflect on the parental love of animals, the more 
I am astonished at its effects. Nor is the violence of this 
affection more wonderful than the shortness of its duration. 
Thus every hen is in her turn the virago of the yard, in propor- 
tion to the helplessness of her brood ; and will fly in the face 
of a dog or a sow in defence of those chickens, which in a few 
weeks she will drive before her with relentless cruelty. 
This affection sublimes the passions, quickens the invention, 
and sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation. Thus a hen, 
just become a mother, is no longer that placid bird she used 
to be, but with feathers standing on end, wings hovering, and ~* 
clocking note, she runs about like one possessed. Dams will’ 
throw themselves in the way of the greatest danger in order to 
avert it from their progeny. Thus a partridge will tumble 
along before a sportsman in order to draw away the dogs from 
her helpless covey. In the time of nidification the most feeble 
birds will assault the most rapacious. All the Azrundines of a 
village are up in arms at the sight of a hawk, whom they will 
persecute till he leaves that district. A very exact observer 
has often remarked that a pair of ravens nesting in the rock 
of Gibraltar would suffer no vulture or eagle to rest near their 
station, but would drive them from the hill with an amazing 
fury ; even the blue thrush at the season of breeding would 
dart out from the clefts of the rocks to chase away the kestril, 
or the sparrow-hawk. If you stand near the nest of a bird 
that has young, she will not be induced to betray them by an 
inadvertent fondness, but will wait about at a distance with 
meat in her mouth for an hour together. 
Should I farther corroborate what I have advanced above 
by some anecdotes which I probably may have mentioned 
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