The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-09-11
CURIOSITIES IN ANIMAL LIFE.

L Ile hdlSllldl lUSIlliCI overcoming lllS
 Barrier of Species.
 A correspondent writes in reference to picture in a recent number:
 The photograph of a COW sucking lambs which appeared in "The Sketch drove me to my notebook to look for similar instances of the maternal in- stinct overpowering the barrier of spe- cies Here are few from well-authen- ticated sources which may interest your readers: In workman's room at Parkhead, Glasgow, in November of last year, might have been seen cat nursing young rat with three of her own kittens. How she came to adopt the rat deponent saith not. The cat was valued as a ratter In February of last year, at Five Oak Green, in Kent, a retriever belonging to Hinton Jones gave birth to litter of ten pups. Five were drowned, and the reduced nursery failed to satisfy the retriever's mater nal heart. She raided sty in which SOW had recently farrowed and carried off eight young sucking pigs, which she placed in her kennel, presumably to bring up her family to it's original strength. This retriever's agility was more remarkable than her arithmetic, for she had to leap a high wall into the sty and out again. None of the young pigs so annexed were at all injured by the experience. We all know that a broody hen will expend her time and patience on anything from a chalk egg to beer bottle, but I have note of two very curious cases At a farm house in the Ravoch district, Aberdeenshire, the oval Id hNx i,, jHh q | hen had been laying regularly, and the | hen. inspired by feelings which she only could explain, took forcible possession I of those kittens and sat upon them | assiduously, resenting with all fowls | indignation the mother cats necessary ministrations to her offspring. In May, 1895, at Stanlake Park, Twyford, Berks, a vagrant tabby, produced four kittens | in the manager of an outhouse, and her | family was almost immediately adopt ed by a hen. So bent was the fowl on matching these Kittens that fair stand-up fight ensued between herself and the rightful parent whenever the latter approached. This hen, with her adopted children, was photographed by l Molyneux, huntsman of MT Garth g hounds, and the picture was published | in sporting paper. Yet another case, | if your editorial patience continue. The kittens of cat belonging to MT Mac farlane, of Woodside Farm, near Cou- 1 par Angus, had been killed by dog. l The bereaved mother forthwith collect cd five young mice and lavished upon them the milk and affection for which | her maternal instincts compelled her to | find outlet This family was visited by many people In the neighborhood (May l iS95), but I am sorry to say 1 never heard what attitude that tabby adopted | toward her strange children when they grew up. I pass over the mistake by which a partridge brought up two | chickens in a field near Tring, as that was pardonable error and susceptible of easy explanation. The instances have given you will, I think, lead many to adopt my own view, that among | some creatures the instinct or materni' ty is paramount"
 | Occupying one of the smaller cages o1 | the Western Aviary at the Zoo" Is 8 curiosity in bird-life. This is cinna
 mon-colored blackbird, which was caught, not long after 1t had left the nest, in a net spread to protect a cher. " tree from him and his kind on the
 Wigmore estate, near Dorking. The
 bird was presented to the Zoo" by A J. Lawford Jones, who described it in g
 paper read before the society in Apri
 last This peculiar coloration is a rare phase of albinism, but is not unprece
 dented Tn 1890 hen blackbird, some
 what paler in hue than Lawford Jones specimen, was shot in Bucks, and i
 preserved in the Natural History Muse
 um. In each of these cases the bacl view of the bird presents a curious like
 ness to that of a thrush. A cinnamon
 colored rock, killed in Pembrokeshire il 1893, is also worth mention, and I be. lieve that at least one case of starlins
 in winter plumage of -browr
 has been recorded, but cannot recal
 particulars. The blackbird seems rath
 CT given to deviation from orthodoxy 1T
 his dress; have seen him with white
 head and neck, with assorted white
 flight and tail feathers pied with irreg.
 plar white patches all over, and, O
 course, pure white. Such a capture a'
 Lawford Jones' is exceedingly interest
 ing to the ornithologist, but, from tn,
 artistic point of view, the cinnamon
 variety cannot be held an improvement
 on the common or garden blackbird.-
 The Sketch.