A NAUGHTY MOCKINGBIRD
Among the young robins I had given me was one that was found sitting
helplessly under some trees.
“I think I will try my solitary Bob with this one,” I said, and I took
it to the aviary and put it on the ground.
The baby robin that had been reserved and sulky with me, wildly flapped
his tiny wings when he saw Bob, and ran after him screaming for food.
Bob stopped short, wheeled round, searching for worms, and diligently
stuffed the little fellow, who followed him as closely as his shadow.
I was delighted with the success of my experiment, but received a shock
a little later on going into the basement to find the wet, bedraggled
body of my poor baby robin in the pigeon’s big bathtub. He must have
fluttered in while following Bob, his foster parent, about, and the
puzzled Bob did not know how to get him out.
As I picked up the body and held him in my hand, a workman who was busy
about some repairs in the basement, said solemnly, “It’s drowned!”
There was no doubt about it. I had lost my little bird, and now there
was nothing but the burial.
Another little robin soon took its place. This one I promptly gave to
Bob, and met with a surprise. The young one fluttered its little wings,
ran after Bob with appealing cries to which a deaf ear was turned. Why
would he not feed it?
“You selfish bird,” I said, and I fed the robin myself.
Bob said nothing, but looked wise, and in a short time my baby robin
was in a dying condition, crying and fluttering his little wings to the
last, as if he saw the loving mother bird approaching with her bill
full of food.
Had Bob refused to feed it because it was diseased? I fancied he had,
for I usually find that birds know a good deal more about each other
than I know about them.
Bob certainly knew a good deal more about himself than I did, for he
soon gave me another surprise. The basement aviary was just under my
study and my father’s. Above the studies was a roof-veranda, and beyond
the veranda was a sun-room. The veranda and sun-room were wired in so
that the birds could not get out, but as there was no access to them
through the studies, a narrow well or elevator, as we called it, had
been built at the back of the house.
The birds went up and down this elevator like flashes of color, and
seemed to enjoy the fun. Some of them preferred to sleep above, some
below.
Among those that liked the roof-veranda was my long-legged gallinule.
I had built him a nice broad nest in a sheltered place, and one summer
night, to my amazement, I saw Bob hanging about him and giving him such
plain hints to vacate the nest that at last the gallinule, being a
gentlemanly bird, stepped off it and allowed Bob to step on.
I could not imagine why Bob was doing this curious thing. He had never
made a nest nor slept in a nest, and had always perched on a branch.
However, I made a practice of not interfering with my birds any more
than I could help and, promising the gallinule a new nest on the
morrow, I left them.
The next morning Bob stepped off the nest with such an air of
importance that I hurriedly approached and looked in it. There lay a
fine big robin’s egg, and convulsed with laughter, I ran to proclaim
the news to the family, “Old Bob the Second is not a male robin; he is
a female.”
Everybody came and stared, and Bob was the center of attraction for
some time to come. She laid two other eggs and sat on them, and they
amounted to nothing, whereupon she deserted the gallinule’s nest and
built one for herself. She sat on this one about three weeks, then
deserted it and the three blue eggs and built another. This too was
unprofitable, and she built another nest, and another, and another,
until late autumn put an end to her nestmaking.
During that and successive summers I got to dread the time of
nestmaking. I used to think I gave her plenty of mud, but there was
rarely enough. She built a large, strong nest on some flat foundation,
or in the forked branches of the firs and spruces I had standing about
the aviary and roof veranda. When the mud gave out she mixed porridge
with earth and soaked strips of paper in the water dishes. She kept
things in a great mess, flinging sods of earth about, also sticks,
straws, and feathers. While building the foundation she was always
very dirty. After every beakful of soft substance was stuck round the
framework, she would settle down in the middle of it, press her breast
hard against the edge, and wheel round and round to keep the shape.
The most of her nests were built in the basement, and it was very
amusing to see her hurry up the elevator to the roof-veranda, dart
about there, and stuff her bill full of straws and grass, then start
downward with a train of nest-material floating behind her. The soft,
flexible grass was for the lining of the nest--the receptacle for her
three precious blue eggs.
I used to pity Bob in her solitary nestmaking, and sometimes she gazed
wistfully at the Virginian and Brazil cardinals and acted as if she
wished they would both help her. They both disliked her, and having
mates of their own, chased her away every time she went near them.
Sometimes I teased her by going up to the nest and telling her that she
might as well give up--her eggs would amount to nothing. She would fly
into a rage and take my fingers in her bill and scold, and sometimes
scream at me.
However, a companion was on his way to her. A year later I had sent
to me a fine mockingbird--“the bird of four hundred tongues,” as the
Mexicans call him. He was a beauty, and quite an acrobat, for he would
go to the top of the elevator and turn over and over in the air,
flirting wings and tail as if to show the pretty white feathers in
them. Bob took quite a fancy to this new bird, whom I named Dan, and
soon a peculiar, querulous, uncomfortable sort of affection sprang up
between them.
Dan used to sing a most fantastic song to her that sounded like “Git
bang, git bang, cheer up, cheer up, meow, meow, meow!” varying it by
imitations of the songs of other birds in the aviary, and also by the
squealing of the guineapigs.
One day he got behind me and mimicked a guineapig in distress so
cleverly that I turned round to aid it, but found only Dan with his
mocking, inscrutable eye fixed on me.
Writes a sweet singer:
List to that bird, his song, what poet pens it?
Brigand of birds, he’s stolen every note.
Prince though of thieves--look how the rascal spends it--
Pours the whole forest from one tiny throat.
Dan’s affection for Bob was somewhat fitful. He flew about with her
sometimes, and sometimes he took no notice of her beyond lowering his
head and giving a spiteful hiss when she went near him. However, he
would not allow any bird to disturb her in her nestmaking, and once
when she deserted a nest and began to build a new one, he sat on the
deserted one until two ringdoves drove him away and took possession of
it themselves.
It was not long before I discovered that Dan’s beautiful skin covered
one of the naughtiest bird hearts I had ever known. He was so clever
though, about the mischief he performed, that I rarely found him out
until it was too late to punish him for it. I often used to shut him
up in the owl’s cage for punishment, and I felt convinced that he knew
what he went in there for, as he was always better after coming out.
His wickedness consisted in persistent bullying. He was no fighter. His
slender body and bill proclaimed that. His chief pleasure in life was
to mischievously frighten birds from their food.
Sometimes he would select a bird as large as a pigeon. I have seen a
big fantail spring from the ground in nervous terror when Dan, with a
menacing hiss, came rushing at him from some sheltered nook.
His attacks were always in the rear, when it was a case of a large
bird. If he had dared to attack the pigeon in front, the big fellow
would have given him a disdainful peck.
One day I found a Java sparrow dead in a box beside her nest full of
eggs. Poor little mother bird! Here was some tragedy. I picked up her
emaciated body, and watched her mate.
He was thin and nervous in appearance, and taking advantage of my
appearance in the aviary, was trying to pick up some of the white
French millet seeds, of which he was very fond. He was meanwhile
keeping a wary eye on Dan, who did not dare to attack him in my
presence.
I read the whole story. The little mother had succumbed first, for
the times of eating would be few and far between, compared with those
of her mate. She had died for her nest--had sat on the eggs till her
half-starved condition forced her to succumb. I gave Dan a wrathful
glance and took the male Java to a sunny room upstairs, where he soon
became as fat as a partridge.
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