A MOTHER WATCHING HER YOUNG
The following singular instance of the far-sighted watchfulness of the mother turkey over her young is told by a French priest. “I have heard,” he says, “a mother turkey, when at the head of her brood, send forth the most hideous scream, without being able to see any cause for it. Her young ones, however, the moment the warning was given, hid under the bushes, the grass, or whatever else seemed to offer shelter or protection. They even stretched themselves at full length on the ground, and lay as motionless as if dead.
In the meantime, the mother, with her eyes directed upward, kept up her cries and screaming as before. On looking up in the direction in which she seemed to gaze, I discovered a black spot just under the clouds, but was unable at first to decide what it was. However, it soon appeared to be a bird of prey, though at first at too great a distance to be distinguished. I have seen one of those mother turkeys continue in this agitated state for four hours at a stretch, and her whole brood pinned down to the ground, as it were, the whole of that time, while their foe has taken its circuits, has mounted and hovered directly over their heads. When he, at last, disappeared, the mother changed her note and sent forth a different sort of cry, which in an instant gave life to the whole trembling brood, and they all flocked round her with expressions of pleasure, as if conscious of their happy escape from danger.”
XC
A REFUGEE SQUIRREL
A squirrel, whose bad luck it was to be captured, was lodged for safe keeping in a trap used for taking rats alive. Here he remained for several weeks, till at length, panting for liberty, he managed to make his escape through a window, and went back once more to his native fields.
The family in which he had been pet, were not a little vexed at the loss of their little favorite, and the servant was ordered in the evening of the same day to remove the trap, that they might no longer be reminded of their loss. When he went to do this, he found to his surprise that the squirrel, all wet and ruffled by the storm, had come back, and again taken up his lodgings in the corner of the trap.
