SELBORNE, _March 26th_, 1773.
Dear Sir,--The more I reflect on the στοργὴ 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 proportion 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 clucking 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 hirundines 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 before in conversation, yet you will,
I trust, pardon the repetition for the sake of the illustration.
The fly-catcher of the "Zoology" (the _Stoparola_ of Ray), builds every
year in the vines that grow on the walls of my house. A pair of these
little birds had one year inadvertently placed their nest on a naked
bough, perhaps in a shady time, not being aware of the inconvenience that
followed. But a hot sunny season coming on before the brood was half
fledged, the reflection of the wall became insupportable, and must
inevitably have destroyed the tender young, had not affection suggested
an expedient, and prompted the parent birds to hover over the nest all
the hotter hours, while with wings expanded, and mouths gaping for
breath, they screened off the heat from their suffering offspring.
A farther instance I once saw of notable sagacity in 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 a
large bundle of long green moss, as it were, carelessly thrown over the
nest in order to dodge the eye of any impertinent intruder.
A still more remarkable mixture of sagacity and instinct occurred to me
one day as my people were pulling off the lining of a hot-bed, 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 στοργὴ, 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 sometimes the more gentle 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 offspring, 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.