Mr. White, in his Natural History, etc. of Selborne, speaking of the natural affection of brutes, says, "The more I reflect on it, 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 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 modification, 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, nestling in the rock of Gibraltar, would suffer no vulture or eagle to rest near their station, but would drive them from the hill with amazing fury; even the blue thrush, at the season of breeding, would dart out from the clefts of the rocks, to chase away the kestrel 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. The fly-catcher 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 incon-\enience 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 we 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 up a large bundle of long green moss as it were carelessly thrown over the nest, in order to deceive the eye of any impertinent intruder."