This affection sublimes the passions, quickens the invention, and
sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation. Thus an 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 hirundines of a village are up in arms at the sight of an
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.
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