Note 61 — NATURAL HISTORY OF CAGE BIRDS. (continued 5)
Reading edition
If it is difficult to induce larks to sit, it appears to be very easy to make them take care of a young brood.
“The instinct,” says Buffon, “which induces hen larks to bring up and watch over a brood appears sometimes very early, even before that which disposes them to become mothers, and which, in the order of nature, ought, it would seem, to precede it.
“In the month of May, a young lark was brought to me which could not feed itself; I fed it, and it could hardly peck up, when a brood of four young ones of the same species was brought to me from another place. She exhibited a singular affection for these new comers, which were not much younger than herself; she nursed them day and night, warmed them under her wings, and pushed the food into their mouths with her beak; nothing could distract her from these interesting duties. If she was removed from the young ones, she flew back to them as soon as she was free, without ever thinking of escaping, as she might have done a hundred times. Her affection increased so much that she literally forgot to eat and drink; and she lived only on the food which was given to her as well as to her adopted young, and she died at length, consumed by this sort of maternal passion. None of the young survived her, they died one after the other, so necessary had her maternal cares become to them; so entirely were these cares produced by affection, and reciprocated.”
This, it appears, is more than could be said of the persons who had the care of these unfortunate little birds.—Translator.