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
otorge (in Greek), 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.
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