“God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear,
To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here.”
[Illustration: Kitten by Madame Ronner]
It was quite natural for the peacock to adopt us, for he had been left
to his own resources at the farm; and he preferred bread and cake and
poultry food to the pickings of the farmyard. He would come quite close
for the bread or the Indian corn, but he would take cake from the hand,
thus giving an exact estimate of the value of risk. He paid for these
little attentions with his own tail, which he deposited in the course
of three days close to the poultry yard.
It was very natural too that the farm kitten should adopt us, her
reason being partly real sociable qualities and partly greed and
luxury. She liked our company and our cat’s company; she also liked our
armchairs and our cat’s meals.
But the adoption by the robins was on altogether a grander scale. They
sacrificed family affection and personal safety for the honour and
pleasure of domesticating a family of human beings.
We are apt to think of ourselves as occupying this unique position in
creation that we alone have the power and inclination to annex other
races of creatures for supplies, for service, and for pleasure. If this
egotism is at all a matter of congratulation, at any rate we flatter
ourselves falsely. The ant keeps its dairy establishment and its staff
of domestic servants, or, as we invidiously choose to call them, its
slaves. Pumas seem to show a distinct tendency to make pets of human
beings, and I strongly suspect that cats take up the same position. We
think we have domesticated the cat. What if the cat thinks it has tamed
us? It induces us to give it board and lodging, and it surely thinks we
look up to it with admiration and affection--as we do.
But, above all, robins have a perfect passion for taming mankind.
As far as we know, robins may have tried to tame other creatures. They
may have paid court to cows and horses, but found that they could not
catch the eye of a cart-horse, or arrest the attention of the bull.
After repeated disappointments (like our own with the zebra) they may
have learnt that the only animal really capable of domestication is man.
The decision of the point whether we were taming the robins or they us
rests upon this: which side made the first advances.
There was no real question here--the robins began it all.
The robins had been brought up in the ivy of the garden wall. We had
played croquet close to them, and gardened beneath them all the summer.
They had escaped being raided by the prowling Persian or the orange
Angora. Towards the end of the summer the great door into the hall
stood open all day, and we used to pull chairs outside into the strip
of shade. Then the robins began to take notice of us.
By this time they had grown up and pegged out their own “claims.” The
baby robin, who had not yet changed his waistcoat, lived in the ivy and
sat upon the left gate-post.
As we camped opposite in basket chairs he drew nearer, hoop by hoop,
across the croquet ground. At last he hopped upon the back of the chair
I sat in.
Then we thought it time to return his call, which was most effectively
done by the distribution of breadcrumbs.
This caused immediately the descent of the second robin, who lived in a
holly tree on the right hand of the door; and at once the feud began.
While the baby robin’s disinterested attachment had been tolerated, no
sooner did he begin to reap a reward than his father swooped on him.
We gathered that it was the father, for he was full-fledged, an older
bird, neat and smart.
There were altogether four of these robins, and as they adopted the
Benson family, what is more natural than to call them by Mrs. Trimmer’s
beloved names of Robin, Dicksy, Pecksy, and Flapsy. I am convinced that
the baby resembled Dicksy; the smart formidable father shall be called
Robin; Pecksy and Flapsy have still to emerge.
Now as Dicksy skimmed across the lawn, halted nervously, and advanced
to pick up a breadcrumb, like a bolt from the blue Robin fell upon him
from the holly tree. Dicksy fled back to shelter, but was received by
Pecksy, who, emerging from the arbutus bush, chased him back with a
few hard pecks. Pecksy also was half-fledged, and had a queer tuft of
light feathers on her head. Although she lived in the arbutus bush, the
right-hand gate-post was her watch-tower.
Now since Dicksy had been our first and earliest friend, and could
alone be held disinterested, we threw crumbs after him; on these Robin
and Pecksy descended; and a crumb happening to fall considerably to the
left, out of the left-hand wall came shyly a fourth robin--evidently
Flapsy.
The next day witnessed a gourd-like growth of intimacy with Robin. He
was always in the near holly tree; he descended for crumbs and came
nearer boldly; he even followed us into the house.
But meanwhile Dicksy’s life was being made a burden to him. He alone
was not allowed to approach us. Pecksy drew nearer, half across the
lawn; Flapsy settled on the croquet stump and took short flights
towards us for crumbs; none interfered with Robin, but Dicksy’s
appearance was like the trumpet for battle; each habitat became
forthwith an ambush.
Dicksy reconnoitred on the left-hand gate-post--not a robin in sight.
He ventured half across the lawn and not a wing stirred. He drew
nearer to the tempting crumb, now he was close, and at that moment
Robin swooped upon him. Dicksy swerved to the left trying to escape,
and Flapsy received him with open beak; he headed off to the right and
Pecksy flew out from her arbutus bush. Finally, he was driven back to
cover under ivy leaves with an empty stomach and an unsatisfied heart.
Dicksy must somehow have offended against all codes and conventions of
robins, but in what way we grosser mortals cannot conceive.
Later as the winter came on, when Robin came round to the lilac bush
at the dining-room window, when he and Flapsy came in to inspect the
tables before and after meals, when he entered the bedroom above to
inquire after a late riser, and partook of light refreshment, Dicksy
still seemed disconsolately to haunt his gate-post.
But now with the coming of spring, and all the new fashions, one cannot
be sure of any one’s identity. Dicksy, I know, was changing his sombre
waistcoat for scarlet; so I can but hope it may be he who is uttering
the quaint little crack of a voice to announce his presence in the next
room.
But I tremble for the prospects of next summer if we are going to prove
so attractive a family. If Robin and Flapsy nest again in the ivied
wall; if Dicksy brings a mate to the left hand gate-post; and Pecksy
sets up an establishment in the arbutus bush, the war of the worlds
will be nothing to the war of the robins.
And at this moment we have undergone a new adoption, for a milk
white jackdaw without a tail flew into the garden yesterday, and the
household was scattered, uttering endearments, among the cabbages, and
scraps of raw meat adorned the lawn. Towards evening he was persuaded
to enter the kitchen. Matilda was asked to lend her cage for a time,
but when she saw a new centre of attraction she burst into screams so
terrific that every one who was not already occupied in housing the
jackdaw ran into the kitchen to see who was being murdered. So they
provided temporary accommodation for Jack under a basket chair.
He liked it so well that this evening he was found sitting on the chair
waiting for some friendly mortal to bestow him inside.