Everyone who has paid even a passing attention to the habits of birds must have noticed the vigilance a pair of catbirds exercise over their nest when containing young birds. Neither parent, when the other is absent, relaxes this vigilance, for they consider no labor, no care, no watchfulness, too great or too exacting where their offspring are to be benefited. Let an enemy approach, even if it be man himself, and they are beside themselves with anger and resentment, flying into the very face of the audacious intruder, as though they would pluck his eyes out as a just punishment for his presumption and temerity. I have seen the nest of a catbird attacked by a black snake, and crushed within the folds of the hideous serpent the father-bird, but the disaster did not cause the mother-bird to desist from the attack, for, utterly oblivious of all else but her offspring and the snake, she fought on until the latter was forced to glide away into the bushes to escape her infuriated assaults. But no species of bird is more courageous in defence of its nest than the little ruby-throated humming-bird. It is really dangerous to visit the nest when with eggs or young. I would as soon attempt to assail the dome-shaped nest of our common hornet as that of this humming-bird. It is as much as one can do to protect his eyes from the lightning-like attacks of these birds, so swiftly and so unerringly do they direct their blows at these points.
So great is the affection and solicitude of the red-eyed vireo for her young, that she will scarcely leave the nest when the hand is stretched out a few inches over the mouth of the structure. And then when she does leave, it is not in a hurried, precipitate manner, but with a quiet, deliberate movement that excites one’s admiration and makes one vow never to abuse such simple, childlike confidence. I have even placed my hand upon the sitting-bird without disturbing the current of her brooding thoughts, or the peaceful serenity of her soul. A rough dash at the nest tends to frighten her away instanter, but when the hand is reached out to it slowly and silently the bird seems to act as though it had nothing to fear, and remains calm and self-possessed.
Who is not familiar with the proverbial skill of the Carolina dove in feigning lameness when her nest is being approached? Without a cry, and with scarcely a rustle of her feathers, she slips out of her nest upon the ground, and by a series of manœuvres, as if desperately wounded, grovels along on her belly in the dust till she has led her enemy a long journey from the site of the nest, when she will take to wing and fly away into a coppice or a clump of brushwood.
That birds should manifest a love for the young which they hatch has always seemed a strange problem to me. I can see how that, in the case of a mammal, the mother should feel a love for the creature who is absolutely a part of herself—whose very life-blood is drawn from her veins. But this is not necessarily the case with birds. If, as often happens with poultry, the eggs of several hens are placed under one bird for hatching, the hen that hatches them knows no difference between the chickens that come from her own eggs and those which proceed from eggs laid by others. Even where the eggs belong to birds of different species, as to the common Muscovy-duck for example, the hen displays as much affection for the young ducklings, despite the disparity of instinct and habit, as she does had they proceeded from her own eggs. May it not be that parental love has different channels of transmission, and that in such a case as this the emanation from the sitting-hen may be the vehicle of parental love toward the young which are to be hatched? Certain it is that a sitting-hen, as many of us have observed, is altogether a changed being, both in attitude and expression. She is entirely absorbed in the eggs when she is incubating, and, though she may not have the intellect to distinguish a mere lump of chalk from one of her own eggs, yet love is altogether independent of intellect, and may exist in all its vigor, and yet may be wasted on an unworthy object.
Fishes, as is generally known, are not particularly emotional beings, and are not likely to entertain a lasting love for anything. Indeed, in some instances, parental love would be absolutely useless, as in the case of the cod-fish, which could be hardly expected to entertain a special love for each of the countless thousands of young it produces every year. The life of the mother would be an unenviable one, if her lot were to look after her young as soon as they are hatched, especially when the varied foes that beset her eggs as soon as they are produced, are considered. Just as there are fishes that possess conjugal love, so there are fishes that possess parental love, and prominent among these are the sticklebacks. But in the case of these fishes the most curious part is that parental love is shown by the father, and not by the mother, the latter having nothing to do but to lay the eggs, and leaving to the former the exclusive labor of providing for the young.
Copyright 1900 by A. R. Dugmore.
WOOD-THRUSH SETTING.
Enough of instances of true parental love among the lower animals could be given to fill this entire book, but a sufficient number have been adduced to show that the feeling is the same in man as in them, although, of course, the mode of manifesting it is different. We have shown the fallacy of the theory that parental love is life-enduring in man and very brief among the animals, and have seen that, in proportion to the duration of life, it is quite as brief among the savages as among the animals. And, again, we have seen where it has been lost and then restored, and also where it was never lost; where in animals, as in man, it has caused complete abnegation of self, the parents living for their children, and not for themselves, and where it has given strength to the weak and courage to the timid. Even the very fishes have been shown to be amenable to the same influences as man, and could we have carried our illustrations still lower down the scale we would have found the same influences existing among much humbler forms of animal existences. In conclusion, there is no resisting the fact that parental love, one of the highest and holiest feelings of which a loving and immortal soul can be capable, is shared equally by man and beast, according to their respective capacities.