or its young affection and
forethought and endurance and unselfishness. We call the bee wise, and
celebrate its "making the yellow honey,"[47] flattering it for its
tickling sweetness; but we neglect the wisdom and ingenuity of other
creatures, both as regards the birth and bringing up of their young. For
example, the kingfisher after conception weaves its nest with the thorns
of the marine needle, making it round and oblong in shape like a
fisherman's basket, and after deftly and closely weaving it together,
subjects it to the action of the sea waves, that its surface may be
rendered waterproof by this plash and cement, and it is hard for even
iron or stone to break it. And what is more wonderful still, so
symmetrically is the entrance of the nest adjusted to the kingfisher's
shape and size, that no beast either greater or smaller can enter it,
they even say that it does not admit the sea, or even the very smallest
things. And cats, when they breed, very often let their kittens go out
and feed, and take them back into their entrails again.[48] And the
bear, a most savage and ugly beast, gives birth to its young without
shape or joints, and with its tongue as with an instrument moulds its
features, so that it seems to give form as well as life to its progeny.
And the lion in Homer, "whom the hunters meet in the wood with its
whelps, exulting in its strength, which so frowns that it hides its
eyes,"[49] does it not intend to bargain with the hunters for its
whelps? For universally the love of animals for their offspring makes
timid ones bold, and lazy ones energetic, and greedy ones unselfish.
And so the bird in Homer, feeding its young "with its beak, with
whatever it has captured, even though it goes ill with itself,"[50]
nourishes its young at the cost of its own hunger, and when the food is
near its maw abstains from it, and holds it tightly in its mouth, that
it may not gulp it down unawares. "And so a bitch bestriding her tender
pups, barks at a strange man, and yearns for the fray,"[51] making her
fear for them a sort of second anger. And partridges when they are
pursued with their young let them fly on, and, contriving their safety,
themselves fly so near the sportsmen as to be almost caught, and then
wheel round, and again fly back and make the sportsmen hope to catch
them, till at last, having thus provided for the safety of their young,
they lead the sportsmen on a long way. As to hens, we see every day how
the