“For the poor wren,
The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.”
This defence of their young by birds has often been noticed by Shakespeare:—
“Unreasonable creatures feed their young;
And though man’s face be fearful to their eyes,
Yet, in protection of their tender ones,
Who hath not seen them (even with those wings
Which sometimes they have us’d with fearful flight)
Make war with him that climb’d unto their nest,