The fourth thing that it is fitting for us to treat, according to the division that we proposed at the beginning, is of the abilities that the Creator gave to all animals for the rearing and defense of their children. In which divine providence shines forth no less, but much more, than in all that until here has been said of them. For the aforesaid abilities principally serve for the conservation of individuals, but what touches the rearing of children belongs to the conservation of the species that comprehends them, which is a greater good, since the common good precedes the particular, and divine providence shines forth more in the government of the greater things than of the lesser.
Therefore the first and principal thing that it provided for this was a great love that parents have for their children, because this makes them fast and labor for them, and offer themselves to any danger, and even to put themselves among lances to defend them. And this same love makes many birds, especially the hen, which always flees from man, consent to let him come near her when she is over the eggs, so as not to let them grow cold. It is true that in fish we do not find this love, because they have another manner of multiplying and conserving their species, which is spawning, for which they seek convenient places, where they may be able to do this more commodiously. With all this, Saint Ambrose makes mention of some fish that bear children, among which he refers a thing worthy to be noted, and it is that a certain fish of these, seeing its little children in some time, opens the mouth and encloses them within itself and, the danger past, returns them as whole and healthy as the whale that swallowed Jonah. Thus this love of which we speak has more place in animals, and even much more in birds, for the reason that above we touched.
With all this, as there is no rule without exception, of the ostrich the same Creator says, speaking with holy Job, that it lacks this love, by these words: “The feathers of the ostrich are similar to those of a hawk, for when this bird leaves its eggs on the earth, will you be powerful as I am to warm them in the dust and bring them to light? It gives nothing that the feet of the traveler tread them, or the beasts of the field break them. It hardens itself toward its children as if they were not its own, because God deprived this bird of wisdom, and did not give it intelligence. When there is need, it lifts the wings on high, and makes mockery of the horse and of the rider who goes upon it.” This example the Creator alleged in order to declare more the care of his providence, because when the love and diligence of this bird is lacking, he takes it to his charge, and without the benefit and heat of the mother brings to light the children whom she abandoned.
Providence similar to this is that which he has for the children of the newly born ravens, because, as in this time the black feathers have not yet been born to them, the father holds them for adulterine, and thus does not wish to maintain them, because he does not recognize them for his own, until he sees them with feathers of his color. Therefore in this season divine providence supplies the office of father, and maintains them, which the Royal Prophet held for so great an argument of the glory of God, that he refers it among his other praises, saying that “he is the one who gives to the beasts their proper sustenance, and to the little young of the ravens that call upon him.”
Nor is the providence that he shows us in the rearing of the children of the eagle less. Of which some recount that, wearied of the labor of rearing them, she dismisses one from the nest. But that Lord who fails nothing, provided another bird, which takes charge of the rearing of that noble child, until it can fly and maintain itself by itself. It is true that Saint Ambrose does not wish to concede this lack of love in the eagle, since the Lord compares in Scripture the love that he has for his spiritual children with that which this bird has for its own; therefore he says that the cause of this rejection is another thing worthy of admiration, which is that she makes her little children look at the sun fixedly, and the one whom she finds so weak of sight that he does not suffer the force of these rays, she rejects from the nest as unfit and alien from the royal nobility of the eagle, the Creator teaching by this example noble parents the little account that they should make of the children who darken with their bad customs the nobility of their lineage.
Also notable is the manner that the hawk has of teaching its little children to hunt. After they are already more reared, and can make some use of the wings, they put before them a bird, its wings half plucked, and they, pressed by hunger, go after it and, this done some times, remain already enabled for the hunt, when they are dressed with their feathers.
I
And since we made mention of the hawk, I shall say of it no new thing, but a very known one, yet little weighed and esteemed by many. In the great and cold nights of winter it procures to hunt a bird, in order to have it all night in the claws and warm itself with it. Already this is one providence. Another is that, he dawning in the morning with great hunger because the night has been long, and both he and all birds of prey have great heat in the stomach, so that hunger may make them hunt, having the food in the claws, he does not touch it, but releases it so that it may go, because from it he had received that benefit. This is another providence. The third is that in the morning, when he goes to seek something on which to feed, he does not fly by the band by which the bird flew, so as not to meet with it, but by the contrary. From these nobilities was born the common proverb that says: “Noble as a hawk,” and as such the royal laws free it from paying tribute or toll, both it and all its family, which are all the birds that come in its company, although it arrive already dead. I ask, then, now: what more would a noble, virtuous, and grateful man do in a similar matter? Therefore all this a hawk does, although not he, but the one who created him with such respects and nobilities, who, not content with
having taught us by his Scriptures the condition of true nobility, also wished to declare it to us by the example of this bird, which, suffering hunger, and having the food in the claws, in such manner cuts against itself that it does not wish to burden the little bird from whom it received that benefit. The nobility of Emperor Octavian did not arrive here, so renowned among all the Roman emperors, since, in order to take vengeance on his enemy, he granted the head of Marcus Tullius, from whom he had received all the authority and dignity that he had. Let those, then, now glory much who descend from caste of kings or emperors, because what beauty can there be in the branches of the tree, where the root is so damaged? And what clearness in the brooks, where the very fountain is so turbid? It remains then that true nobility is with the fear of God, because, where this dwells, stinginess nor vileness has place.
The doe-rabbit, when she is to give birth, makes the bed soft so that the tender children may not hurt themselves. For which, besides some little straws that she places beneath, she plucks the hairs of the belly to place above, therefore what greater maternal charity than this? And when she goes out to seek food, in such manner she leaves covered the mouth of the burrow, that it cannot easily be perceived. The wolf, though being insatiable, if the female dies, he rears the little young, drawing from the crop what he has eaten, and sharing it with them.
But returning to the purpose of the rearing of children, for this serves the fabric of the nests that they make to rear them, which is so measured and proportioned for this affection, that to Quintilian this appeared a species and image of reason, especially considering that soft little bed that they put above the nest so that the newly born and tender little young may not hurt themselves with the hardness of the nest.” But Aristotle with much reason is astonished at the fabric of the nest of a swallow. And what sufficed to put admiration in so great a philosopher, does not suffice to put it in us, either because we see this each day, or because we do not have eyes to know how to look at and weigh the works of God. For who could believe, if he did not see it, that so small a little bird makes a nest as of vault, leaning against a wall, with no more columns to sustain it in the air, and that she mixes straws with the mud so that the work may set, as the masons do when they coat a wall in order to whitewash it, and that, besides this, she seeks some little feathers, or other soft things, so that the little young may not hurt themselves? But I wish that the men who have reason tell me now, what means can this little bird have, when it happens to fabricate its nest in land where there is no mud nor any slime? For my part I confess that I could not invent it. But this little bird knew it, because another greater understanding governs her, which is that of the Creator, who gave her industry to make mud where there is none. For for this she wets the wings in the water, and rolls herself in the dust, and in this manner makes mud, and with many journeys of these comes little by little to give an end to her work, which, as wise, makes her nest within our houses, because (as Saint Ambrose says) in this place she has her children more secure from enemy birds, and pays us the rent of the houses with her music and with serving us as a clock to awaken in the morning. But both in this and in all the rest that here is treated, it is fitting to repeat that sentence of the Apostle: “Perchance does God have care of oxen and of swallows?” It is clear that all this is his wishing to give himself to be known to men, in order to be adored and reverenced by them. For whoever has eyes to note both the fabric of the bodies of all animals and the abilities that they have for their conservation, will see clearly that all of them preach his wisdom, and that, as many as are the creatures, so many are the witnesses of his glory.
II
Therefore the thing that Saint Basil and Saint Ambrose recount of a little bird that is called halcyon is not less admirable, in which the Creator wished to show us more clearly the perfection of his providence, and how in nothing it is lacking. For this he gave to this little bird an inclination to make its nest in the sand next to the sea, and this in the middle of winter. Therefore what remedy so that the waves of the sea do not drown it, when it goes altered? Someone might say that providence was careless in this, since it gave inclination to this bird to place the eggs where it could not conserve them. Therefore so that this could not be said, what remedy? He who could give it found it, who, as lord of the sea, placed commandment upon it that within fourteen days (that is to say, seven in which this bird warms the eggs, and another seven in which it rears them until they can fly) it should not be altered nor lift its waves, so that it could not with truth be said that a point was lacking in the providence of God. O admirable Lord in all your works! O how worthy you are to be recognized, and adored, and reverenced in all of them, and how much you desire that we know you, since such lessons you give us of your greatnesses and marvels! Who will not hope from you the remedy of all his necessities, since for some so small little birds you command that so furious and so great body of the Ocean sea that for all these days it be quiet? Which the sailors have noted, and they call these days halcyon days, and have pledges from this little bird that through all this space that she is rearing her little young, it secures them from storm.
Nor is it to be left unnoted how all birds keep an image of matrimony, and take turns and divide the labor in the rearing of the children, because while one is over the eggs, the other goes to seek food, and when this one returns, it does the same office, and the other also goes to seek its food. This we see each day in the wild pigeons that we rear in our houses, which, as Pliny says, are so fecund that they bear ten times in the year, and the little young (as he himself says) in the fifth month can be parents. And it happens many times that the little young are still in the nest, and together with them the eggs for another rearing. And he himself says that they always lay two eggs, of which one comes out male and the other female, and the male comes out first. In this marvelous fecundity is seen how he wished to provide man with sustenance, for which reason both to these birds, and to the partridges and rabbits, he gave so much multiplication of children, so that thus by this means as by many others he might provide man with sustenance, and thus some by hunting might gain their life, and others might maintain themselves with the hunt.
The cows, when they sense danger from some wild beast, all make themselves into one millstone, and enclose within it the little calves, and they, turned with their haunches toward the children, and the horns outward, which are the arms that the Creator gave them, are at point of war to defend them. The same do the mares in similar danger, to defend their little colts, but these put the haunches outward, because they have their arms in the feet. For, as we already said, each animal knows its arms, and knows how to use them in any danger.
Let us come to the birth of animals. Before the birth their children are maintained in the wombs of the mothers by the little cord of the navel, as men are, and an instrument is not lacking to them to cut it when giving birth, because for this they serve themselves with the teeth, with which they cut it in order to discharge them from themselves, and with the tongue they lick and clean them of the uncleanness that they bring out from the womb, which the she-bear notably does, who bears the children
very misshapen and she, by force of licking them and licking them again, gives them the figure that they have.
Nor are deceits and adulteries and thefts lacking in birds as among men. For of the cuckoo it is said that it goes little by little eating the eggs of some other bird, and in place of them goes placing its own, from which with its craftiness it draws two profits: the one, to maintain itself from others’ eggs, and the other to spare itself the labor of warming and rearing its own. Which redounds in two other harms of the robbed bird, which is to kill its children, and to load it with the rearing of others’. This is the condition of thieves and tyrants, which is always to seek their profit with the harm of another.
The partridge also suffers another wrong in the rearing of its children, not very different from the past one, and very similar to that of those two bad women who contended before King Solomon, one of whom stole the child from the other, saying that it was hers. For there is a partridge that steals the eggs of another partridge, and warms them and brings them out and rears them as its own. But here there intervenes so great a marvel that, if we did not find it in chapter 17 of Jeremiah, it would altogether seem incredible, although many are the authors who write it, as Saint Jerome refers upon this passage. Who says that the partridge steals its eggs from another, and warms and rears them. But as these, after already somewhat grown, hear the call of the true mother who laid the eggs, they leave the false one, and follow the true one. Who could believe this, if the very author of this marvel had not said it in his Scripture? Who wished here to represent to us the mystery and fruit of the Redemption of Christ, by whose merit men, who until the time of his coming served alien gods, when they heard the voice of their true father, by means of the preaching of the Gospel, left the false gods whom they adored, and came to serve and adore the true God and their creator.
In the pelican also he wished to represent to us the same mystery and benefit, because of it it is said that it draws the children from the eggs dead, and that, wounding its breast with its beak, it resurrects them, sprinkling them with the blood that it draws from it. For which King of Portugal Don John the Second, who was very valorous, took it for device, declaring to us by this example the difference that there is between the king and the tyrant, because this one maintains himself on the blood of his own, but that one gives his life and blood for them. What Aelian recounts of this bird is that it makes its nest on the earth. And for this the hunters use this art against it, that they encircle the nest with straw and set fire to it. Then the father comes with great haste to aid the children, intending to put out the flame with the movement of the wings, with which he not only does not put it out, but rather enkindles it more, and in this manner, the wings burned in defense of the children, he comes into the hands of the hunters, not considering strange to place his life for them. Which no less than the example of the partridge represents to us the immense charity of the son of God, who offered himself to death in order to redeem and repair the life of the children whom he created. But now with the sweet memory of this highest benefit we shall give an end to this chapter. Whoever wishes to know more of these matters, let him read Aristotle in the books that he wrote on the nature of animals, and Pliny in the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh books, and Aelian in the sixteen books that he wrote on this matter. But this little we have here treated in order to teach the Christian to philosophize in these matters, and by them to lift the spirit to the knowledge and love of his Creator, who, if he is so admirable in his creatures, how much
more will he be so in himself? And if our knowledge so much tastes of contemplating his works, how much more will it taste of contemplating the infinite wisdom of him who made them, who knows so much and can do so much that, in so great an infinity of creatures that lack reason, he impressed such inclinations, that they do their works as entirely as if they had reason?