A BIRD FROM OVER THE SEA
Shortly after parting from my rabbits and rats I became much interested
in hearing from a naturalist friend, of the arrival of a strange bird
on our coast. A pitiless gale had been beating strange birds shoreward,
and this wanderer had been picked up, helpless, but still living. The
man who found him knew from his brilliant coloring that he was no Nova
Scotian bird, and sent a description of him to my naturalist friend,
who at once pronounced him to be a purple gallinule--a heron-like wader
related to the coot family.
“The bird is a native of the Gulf States,” wrote the naturalist, “and
of the South Atlantic generally. I wish he could give us an account
of his trip. He must have been caught in a tyrannous blast, and been
whirled more than a thousand miles, and he not a great flyer, either.”
I was quite excited about this bird that had been hurried so swiftly
through the air; the more so, as I heard that he was intended as a
present for me, after he had recuperated in a cage that he seemed quite
contented in.
Shortly afterward the naturalist arrived with the gallinule in a box,
with a kind of chimney to it to accommodate his long neck. I could not
see him properly in it, so we hurried to the aviary and let him loose
on the earth. He was a beauty, with handsome blue and purple plumage,
and seemed a gentle, reasonable sort of bird, not at all frightened by
captivity. After eating gravely from a cup of cornmeal pudding, with
worms for raisins, he took a long drink.
The guineapigs, devoured with curiosity, ran round and round this
handsome bird with the long, slender legs. He walked very lame on one
of these legs, but after examination, we decided that there was nothing
broken--he had merely rheumatism in it.
In order to hasten his recovery I took him up to my warm study, where I
added hard-boiled eggs to his bill of fare. These he liked very much. I
loved to watch him. He had a pretty way of carrying his long neck and
head, an exceedingly calm, philosophical manner, and lovely dark eyes.
He had also a comical way of flirting his tail and showing the pretty
white feathers in it.
After a few days his wings did not droop so much. He was getting
better, his excellent appetite helping him in this respect. While
eating, he was very economical; and if a crumb dropped outside his dish
he at once picked it up.
Soon he began to fight his cage in my study, and beat himself about so
much, that I decided to put him downstairs. First, though, we must take
his photograph, and we had great amusement in arranging a sofa in a
window, and persuading him to sit on it.
After his picture was taken, he was put into the aviary, and seemed
delighted with the greater freedom, flying to and fro, with his legs
sticking straight out behind him. Finally he calmed down, walked about,
looked out the windows, and at night-time took possession of a broad,
soft nest that I had made him in one of the trees standing against the
wall. He liked the protection of these firs and spruces. Animals and
birds kept in captivity enjoy having some place where they can get out
of sight. I often pity squirrels kept in open cages. They should always
have a box to run into.
The guineapigs kept on bothering the gallinule. When he was eating,
they pressed close to him. He eyed them severely, but did not retaliate
until they were actually on his long, slender claws. Then, with a
well-directed blow, he would strike them exactly on the top of the head
with his heavy beak, and I fear caused the death of several of them,
that were found lying quite still and cold where they had fallen in
their tracks.
He also disliked being bothered or troubled by any birds, and in a
quiet but determined way always got rid of them. Shortly after I got
him he took a fancy to double up his long legs, and squat in a nest of
straw that I made for him on a broad window ledge. As he sat there in
the sun, the other birds went to call on him. He paid no attention to
first calls, but when the ringdoves, whose chosen place was near him,
came a second time, he leaned over, took one by the tail, and pulled it.
This seemed to me to show some sense of humor, and I afterward noticed
other birds indulging in tail-pulling. Canaries are particularly fond
of it, and I often have seen a mischievous canary sneaking up to
another who is sitting on a branch, his little throat distended, his
head back. He is singing the most eloquent song he knows. Perhaps he is
showing off before some pretty stranger whose good graces he wishes to
gain, when, lo, he is thrown into a most pitiable state of confusion
and contortion, for canary number one has seized his tail and has given
it a good tweak.
He almost falls back, then with a wrathful squawk the song changes, and
he pursues the bad bird to give him a pecking.
The gallinule never liked my ringdoves. I brought them home with me
when I came from my European trip. I got them in Boston, though I had
resolved to get them in Paris, for one day while walking down the
Boulevard Montparnasse, I had fallen in love with a gentle bird that
had called, “Coo, oo, oo!” to me, from the door of a laundry.
I turned to speak to him, as he stood bowing unceasingly to me, and the
smiling proprietor of the shop informed me that he was very tame and
never flew away.
“I shall have a pair of ringdoves when I go home,” I remarked, and
therefore purchased two pretty birds, and took them up to Nova Scotia
with me. They were gentle birds, but unyielding and obstinate, and
they did not want the gallinule in their corner of the aviary. The
laundryman had been right about their love for home. They rarely
wandered about the aviary, but kept in their pet place. The gallinule,
forgetting how he had resented their visits, would insist on calling on
them, and then there would be a fight.
Their combats were bloodless, and exceedingly funny. When the doves
saw him approaching they would look angry, would slide along their
perch, and, lifting their wings, would give him good, sound slaps. All
the dove and pigeon tribe fight in this amusing way, and they can give
quite hard blows.
The gallinule, finding one on each side of him, would try to look
martial, and clapping his wings close to his sides, would tilt
backward, double up his long legs, spread his claws flat, and give a
splay-footed kick at them. He had the effect of falling over backward
as he fought, and his doubling-up process must have been as fatiguing
as it was funny, for he always brought it speedily to a close, and
beating a retreat, left the doves in possession of their perch.
Before I leave these doves, I must speak of their amusing watchdog
habit. All through the night they would cry out if they heard any
noise inside the house. It would have been impossible for a burglar to
enter the basement, without having them call loudly in concert to him,
“Coo-oo, ooo-ooo! Whooo!”
After I had had Beauty for some months, I had another gallinule come
over seas and land to join my collection of birds, though he, of
course, had not the least intention of entering an aviary when he left
the sunny South. Strange to relate, he too was picked up exhausted on
the shores of Nova Scotia, but nearer to me, having dropped down close
to Dartmouth, a town across the harbor from Halifax.
I first heard of him from a bird-fancier in Dartmouth, who called on me
and asked me what I gave my gallinule to eat.
“You have not by any chance a live one?” I asked.
He said he had; that a little boy had picked up a strange bird on the
railroad track by the shore, and knowing that this gentleman had a fine
collection of stuffed birds, had brought it to him, asking him to kill
and mount it for him.
Telling the boy that it would be a pity to kill so handsome a bird, the
gentleman gave him a dollar, and told him to choose one of his already
stuffed birds.
The boy went away happy, and the gentleman came to me to write a bill
of fare for the stranger, as he wished very much to keep him.
I told him I had not dreamed there were any but stuffed gallinules for
several hundreds of miles near me, and that as his bird was fortunate
enough to be alive, I would recommend a general sort of diet, for I saw
my Beauty picking at all sorts of food in the aviary.
Above all, we must have a good, deep water dish. No matter how cold the
weather was, Beauty would stand for hour after hour in his bathtub,
gazing about him in a quiet contemplative fashion, and occasionally
making a swift bob down into the water to wet his purple plumage.
The gentleman said he would possibly get tired of keeping a solitary
bird, and if he did, would send it over to me. Therefore, I was not
surprised, when in a few days gallinule number two arrived in a basket.
Once more I was excited. What would the meeting be like between these
two wanderers from a foreign shore? Imagine my delight if, held
prisoner in Mexico, I should suddenly have thrust into my prison
another real, live Nova Scotian.
I took the new bird down to the aviary and let him out. He also was a
handsome bird, and in good condition, in spite of his long flight; and
was, I imagined, slightly larger than mine.
To my disappointment, there were no hysterics, no heroics about the
meeting. They did not fly to meet each other. My gallinule looked at
the strange gallinule, and the strange gallinule looked at him. I
thought I saw tokens of quiet pleasure on the part of each one, but it
was extremely quiet.
The stranger, after gazing about him with the cool philosophical
stare that seems to be peculiar to gallinules, walked up to a little
looking-glass, and pecked at his reflection there. As it did not
reciprocate, he kicked at it scornfully. Then he looked about to see
what there was to eat. After satisfying his appetite he had a bath.
The next day I found him stuffing himself with bread and milk that was
very warm, almost hot. I was struck by it, for most birds like their
food lukewarm or cold.
Though still undemonstrative, he soon attached himself to my gallinule,
and they usually kept together, though their friendship was of the
coolest, calmest kind. Nothing ever disturbed the equanimity of those
gallinules but the firing of the twelve o’clock gun from the citadel in
the middle of the city. In all colonial towns around the world that
possess an English garrison this noontide gun or cannon is fired.
The first gallinule always jumped and gave a loud squawk when it went
off. The other one did not mind it so much.
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