MY FIRST CANARIES
Some years ago I heard John Burroughs lecture in Boston in the rooms of
the Procopeia Club on “Observation of Nature.”
He said that we see in life what we look for, and told of Thoreau who
had a great faculty for finding arrow-heads. A friend with whom he was
walking one day asked him how he found them.
“In this way,” replied Thoreau, stooping down and picking one up.
After I became interested in birds I found them all around me, and even
in my small native city discovered that there existed several fine
collections of birds, especially of canaries.
I visited these collections and, observing the great variety of
canaries, found that it is with them as it is with pigeons. The
original stock has been so transformed and improved on that one cannot
recognize the little wild ancestral canary of the islands off the coast
of Africa, in their diversified descendants.
There are the nervous, high-strung Belgian canaries with the humps
on their backs, making them look like tiny yellow camels, the Scotch
fancies with their half-circles of bodies, the insignificant looking
Germans with their exquisite song, the fluffy French, the strangely
marked hybrids, and the large, handsome English birds, often eight
inches long and with brilliant coloring.
This coloring arises from the desire of bird-dealers to have scarlet
birds. They used to have plenty of deep-gold canaries, and in order to
intensify this color, tried experiments in feeding saffron, cochineal,
port wine, and beet-root to no avail; but finally a bird-keeper
discovered that cayenne pepper was what he needed to turn yellow to
scarlet and make his birds the sensation of the canary world.
My first canaries were, however, none of these thoroughbreds. In those
days I did not think of raising young ones, and one day taking pity
on some underfed, ugly birds in the house of a poor woman, I bought
two and took them home with me. They were not clean and they were not
pretty. The sickly, yellow one I named Jessie, the dark-green one with
a pitiful attempt at a crest I called Minnie. Jessie did not live long.
She had no constitution, and one of my Brazil cardinals took a dislike
to her and struck her, and though I rescued her, she finally died. To
replace her I got another--this one a prettier bird called Jennie.
My next canary was a thoroughbred, the son of an English prize bird. I
paid five dollars for him, which was very cheap. I fell in love with
him, as he nervously danced about his cage, and as long as I had him he
was the most remarked bird in my aviary. He was much larger than the
ordinary canary. His body was mottled green and yellow, his heavy crest
hung so thick and drooping over his eyes that it partially obscured his
sight, and the long, silky feathers of his body and legs made him look
as if he had petticoats on. He was really a monstrosity, but was such a
dear bird and so interesting, and withal so intelligent, that all the
members of the family loved him.
He was terribly intense. I never before and never since have seen a
bird that took such a vivid, picturesque interest in everything that
went on around him. I put him in my study when I got him, and, tossing
his head so that he could look under his drooping crest, he examined
everything in the room and every one that came into it. To my delight
he soon began to sing--a heavy, overpowering song, and as he sang he
danced like a professional dancer, shaking and twisting and agitating
his long feathers.
When I got him it was winter-time, and I did not dare to put him in the
aviary lest he should take cold. So, as he could not go down to Minnie
and Jennie, I brought them up to him. They had a large cage near one of
the windows, but not too close to it, for canaries do not like draughts
any better than human beings do. They were supposed to stay in their
cage, but they spent the most of their time out in the room with me.
Norwich, as I called my beauty, was enraptured with these new birds,
and almost agitated himself to death in trying to make himself
agreeable. Minnie was his favorite from the first, and Jennie fell into
unhappy jealousy.
Minnie really had a most extraordinary amount of character and
individuality for such a tiny bird. She was self-willed, determined,
clever, and full of resources. She made up her mind that Norwich should
like her better than he did Jennie, and she swayed him to her will.
He was good-natured, agreeable, and anxious to please--a mere tool in
the hands of such a clever bird as Minnie. When Minnie had, by various
wiles and devices, succeeded in attaching him to herself, she began to
think of nest-making.
I cared nothing about raising young birds, and gave them only an amused
attention. She flew all about my study, picked every floating bit of
down and shining motes from the floor, seized feathers and scraps of
paper, and chose as her first nesting-place--one of the gas globes.
As fast as she placed a bit of nesting material in the globe, it fell
to the floor. This did not discourage her for a long time, for the
patience of birds is infinite. They work steadily and persistently at
anything they wish to accomplish, and seem to think with the great
Napoleon, that a difficulty is merely something to be overcome. They
are also sweet-tempered, and not at all resentful toward any person or
any bird who might help them in accomplishing their object, whatever it
happens to be, but who does not do so.
So Minnie worked steadily on day after day until, at last, she was
convinced that the globe was certainly bottomless, and I was convinced
that I was acting very shabbily in not encouraging so industrious and
patient a bird. I therefore fashioned a rough nest out of twigs--for I
was new to the business myself--and put it in a corner of her cage.
She watched me with great interest and curiosity, and as soon as I had
left the cage, flew to it, examined it, and adopted it as her own. It
was a shaky structure, but the little uncomplaining bird found it quite
satisfactory, and was delighted to discover that the pieces of cloth
and string she put in did not fall through the bottom of it.
This was not my first experience with the curiosity of birds; I had
found that I could not enter the aviary and throw down even a scrap of
paper without having a cloud of birds around it as soon as my back was
turned, picking at it, pulling it, as if to discover why I had put it
there.
Birds and animals know more than we think they do, and they certainly
have some way of reading our minds, probably by some slight visible
sign.
When my father in his study forms the design of going downtown, the
dog at his feet rises, and shows by his actions that he knows of this
design. What tells him? My father has done nothing to acquaint the dog
with his purpose just formed.
Apparently he has done nothing, yet he has. He has put by his pen with
an air of finality, or he has pushed back his chair in a certain way,
or he has glanced at his watch. Something tells the little, intelligent
creature, who guesses the meaning of my father’s action more quickly
than we human beings would, that he is going out of the house.
In the same way, I have been struck by the certainty that when I enter
the aviary with the intention of catching a certain bird, he knows it,
and he alone gets excited. If my sister were with me she would not know
which bird I was about to lay my hands on. The particular bird knows by
the glance I give him.
When Minnie had finished lining the nest I gave her, and began to sit
on it, Jennie became wild with jealousy. She flew at the nest, pulled
pieces from it, and was such a scandal and shame to Minnie and Norwich
that, wishing to please her too, I made another nest and put it in the
other end of the cage.
Now she too was happy, and began to lay eggs and to sit on them. I
thought this a satisfactory condition of affairs, but as time went on
I became convinced that two hen canaries should not have nests in the
same cage.
Norwich spent all his time with Minnie. He sat by her, talked to her,
filled his beak with food that he put in her pleading one, and sang to
her, until the exasperated Jennie would call out as if to say, “Have
you not a word for me?”
Norwich would draw himself up, look at her uneasily, as if he were
asking, “Why can’t you let a fellow alone?” then would continue his
attentions to Minnie.
Jennie almost boiled over, and leaving her nest flew at Minnie’s, often
seizing a beakful of stuffing, to the great detriment of the eggs.
Minnie too had a temper, and lowering her head and spreading her wings,
would rush at her former friend, shaking like a little fury, while the
uneasy Norwich would almost fidget himself off his claws, squeaking
uncomfortably as if to say, “I don’t see why you two ladies can’t
agree!”
I soon took Jennie away. She was a nice little bird, and I did not
like to see her unhappy. She went back to the aviary, and lived there
happily for some time.
Now ensued a season of calm for Minnie and Norwich. In thirteen days
her eggs began to hatch. I had never seen young canaries before, and
examined them with deep interest as they lay at the bottom of the
nest--three tiny yellow and red lumps of flesh, developing long necks
and microscopic open beaks when Norwich touched them tenderly with his
own.
How he did stuff them! I wish that all human babies had such devoted
parental affection as those tiny birds had. All day long he hung over
them, and the instant the little heads were raised he was ready with
his beak full of the perfectly fresh egg-food I made for them.
Every night he nestled close beside them and Minnie. I have never had
another canary do this, the father bird usually sleeping a little way
from the mother. Norwich and Minnie were a remarkable pair. She was
so businesslike and resourceful; he was so intensely sensitive and
affectionate.
The young birds developed wonderfully, and in three weeks were as large
as their parents, and had hopped out of the nest. Fortunately, these
were fine, large birds, more like the handsome father than the dowdy
mother, but as time went by I saw the importance of careful selection
in the mating of birds. I had and have children and grandchildren,
great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren of my handsome
Norwich and underbred Minnie. Many of these birds are strong, and
nervous, and handsome like the father. Several of them have been
subject to mysterious decline and death. There the poor blood on the
mother’s side of the house comes in. Have good parents and you have
good offspring.
As soon as the warm weather came I put Norwich and Minnie out on the
roof-veranda. Now they were happy, and disproved all the nonsense that
is talked about caged birds preferring a cage to liberty. I grant that
a canary always has a certain lack of fear with regard to a cage. He
will enter it to feed, even to sleep, but if you leave the door open he
will spend more time outside of it than in it.
Any of my canaries would fly about the street outside our house and
would return to the roof-veranda. I have no doubt but what I could have
allowed many of them this liberty all the time if it had not been for
the cats. These cats were most amusing. I am fond of the cat tribe, and
could not find it in my heart to be angry with them, for they were so
perfectly open and frank in their demands for birds.
One old fellow would follow me about the garden as I looked for green
stuff for the birds. His mouth was wide open, he was fairly yelling for
a nice plump pigeon or canary, or a bright-headed foreigner.
“Pussy, it is quite impossible,” I would say gravely; “I love those
birds, I cannot give them to you to crunch to pieces in your jaws.”
“Me-ow, wow!” he would cry in despair, and would go and sit close to
the aviary windows and watch them.
The birds did not mind him, nor the other half-dozen felines that gazed
with him. They only minded the nocturnal ventures of the cats, for
there were enterprising ones that climbed the twenty feet into the air
of the wire elevator and promenaded over the roof of the second story
of the house. Often at night I have been awakened by a cry of distress
from a bird or a sound of wings beating against the wire netting and,
stealing out, have found an adventurous pussy on the roof. These cats
never went down the way they came up. Every few mornings I had the task
of inducing my cat friends to return to terra firma.
One day I was amused to see a neighbor’s child with a lone kitten in
his hands, begging an old cat to come down off the roof to her young
one. She did not, till I assisted her--this time, I think, by means
of a bean-pole. Finally, a cat got up on the roof, and would not come
down. No kind of persuasion touched her. So I sent for a carpenter and
a ladder, and after he brought pussy down I had him put a wide board
round the elevator that said, “so far and no farther,” to the cats.
To return to Norwich and his first nest of baby birds, and also his
subsequent ones. I think I allowed him and Minnie to raise three sets
of young ones this first summer, though two would have been enough, so
great a strain on the mother is the rearing of nestlings.
I wanted to know whether the father bird taught the babies to sing. I
used to watch these young ones when they began to listen to the singing
around them, and made first faint, hoarse efforts at song themselves.
Norwich too listened to them with evident pleasure, and sang a great
deal himself, in a way that showed the act of singing was a relief to
his nervous, excitable nature. He was apparently not trying to teach
them. He sang when angry or glad--he wanted to express his own emotion.
I never saw him or any other father bird deliberately try to give the
young ones a lesson. The young ones certainly acquired something from
the father’s song, but they also took up the notes of other birds. No
two birds sang alike. There was always a slight variation.
As time went by and I got other canaries, there was a great deal of
quarreling. Canary fights consist of shrieks and screams of anger, a
flying together high up in the air, with a great fluttering of wings
and striking of beaks, then a coming down again. It is all fuss and
feathers with no bloodletting.
Norwich, with his long feathering, was perfectly ludicrous when he
quarreled. He would tremble with rage, and from under his crest which,
by the way, I had shortened when he went into the aviary, he would dart
furious glances at any canary that happened to be meddling with him.
Then, when his rage was over, or not quite over, he would dance and
sing as if his little throat would burst.
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