Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/119

In the animal world I know few arrangements of Nature more beautiful than the absolute devotion of maternity to its offspring, so long, though only so long, as its assistance is required. A bird feeding her young, a tigress licking her cubs, a mare wheeling round her foal—each of these affords an example of loving care and tenderness, essentially feminine in its utter forgetfulness of self. Each of these squanders such gold as it possesses, the treasure of its deep instinctive affection, on ingratitude and neglect. The nestlings gape with hungry little beaks, when they hear the flap of wings, not to greet the coming provider, but that they may eat and be filled. The cubs huddle themselves up to their mother's side, for warmth and comfort, not for her cruel beauty nor her fierce protecting love. The foal, when it gets on its long legs, will follow your horse or mine as readily as its dam.