The Natural History of Selborne

A boy has taken three little young Squirrels in their nest, or drey, as it is called in these parts.  These small creatures he put under the care of a cat who had lately lost her kittens, & finds that she nurses & suckles them with the same assiduity & affection, as if they were her own offspring.  This circumstance corroborates my suspicion, that the mention of deserted & exposed children being nurtured by female beasts of prey who had lost their young, may not be so improbable an incident as many have supposed: — & therefore may be a justification of those authors who have gravely mentioned what some have deemed to be a wild & improbable story.  So many people went to see the little squirrels suckled by a cat, that the foster mother became jealous of her charge, & in pain for their safety; & therefore hid them over the ceiling, where one died.  This circumstance shews her affection for these foundling, & that she supposes the squirrels to be her own young.  The hens, when they have hatched ducklings, are equally attached to them as if they were their own chickens.  For a leveret nursed by a cat see my Nat: History, p. 214.  I have said “that it is not one whit more marvellous that Romulus, & Remus, in their infant & exposed state, should be nursed by a she wolf, than that a poor little suckling leveret should be fostered & cherished by a bloody grimalkin.”