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Show ANIMALS' MATERNAL INSTINCT. Story Told About a Dog Nursing Three Kittens. The Salt Lake Tribune's story of Maud, the dog which is nursing three kitters at the Pacific hotel, having stolen them from their mother, was the cause of much comment Tuesday and Wednesday on the subject of the maternal instinct among animals, which reaches out and includes the young of other species. One Salt Lake woman relates the following: "When my daughter was a little girl, here in Salt Lake, she had a young pigeon given to her. At the same time one of our hens had a lot of little chickens. The pigeon at once began to run around with these little chicks, and the hen made no difference between her attention to it than to the chicks. At night all of them, pigeon included, gathered under her wings and went to sleep. "When they grew too old to take their rest in this manner, they would all roost around the edge of the basket bas-ket in which the mother hen took her rest. With the chickens each night the pigeon roosted, and all of its life it must have believed that it was a chicken and not a pigeon." The love of a dog and cat are not without example, though the case of Maud has, so far as is known, no duplicate. du-plicate. One man relates that a little lit-tle kitten was taken to a house where lived a great St. Bernard. The dog grew fond of the little thing, and when it was decided to take it the dog seemed to understand. He made his way to the-door and stood there, barring bar-ring the way so that it could not be taken out. It is a fact worth noticing that dogs and -cats, full grown, no matter how ferocious they may be to the adult man or woman, rarely harm the little children unless they are "mad" or sick. No matter how they may attack the "grown-ups," the little ones may approach them, pull at their fur and maul them, and although they may offer of-fer vocal protest, as a rule they do not harm the little ones. All grown animals seem to recognize the young of other animals, and their instinct is to care for them. |