RAISING YOUNG BIRDS
My canaries with their bites, and nips, and blows, reminded me of
naughty children. However, it does not do for a bird to be too meek in
an aviary. The bird that, when struck on one cheek, turns another, must
say good-bye to happiness. The bird that keeps out of the way and is
never attacked, gets on very well, but the bird that is not afraid to
stand up to a bully, has the best time of all.
I was amused with a hen bird one day that was attacked by a larger
bird. She had no time to fly, but she opened her beak and spread her
wings, and made such a horrible and such a determined face that her
assailant yielded her the perch and flew away.
I saw many singing contests, especially when there were two males
anxious to please one female. The first canary would do his prettiest,
then would deliberately stop and listen to his rival. I have often seen
this first canary hitch up to his rival, and peer down his distended
throat as if to say, “Where does all that noise come from?”
My canaries were the most industrious birds I had. I have never yet had
a canary in health, that when spring began, was not immediately seized
with a rage for nest-making that lasted till late in the autumn.
They like a new nest for every clutch of eggs, and a canary whose
ancestors have been kept in cages for generations, will go right
back to his wild habit of building in trees if you do not give him a
nest-box. Even if there is a nest-box, some prefer the trees. I used a
great many traveling-cages for nests, and hung them on trees and walls
where the little birds could find them and build inside. These tiny
cages, made of fir, whittled during the long winter evenings in Germany
by miners and woodcutters, and sold for two and a half cents a cage,
were for the canaries what the cracker boxes were for the pigeons. They
were protected at the backs and sides, and the father birds could sit
on the top. From the fronts of the cages I removed a few bars so the
parents could go in and out.
It was wonderful to see the little canaries at work, flying to and
fro with their beaks full of nesting materials. Fibrous roots should
be given them, long, fine dry grass, cow or dog hair, rabbit down and
feathers, though my canaries got enough of the latter in the aviary.
Cotton wool and long lengths of twine should not be provided lest they
entangle their feet.
When I found that my canaries liked soft white string better than
anything else, I cut it in short bits for them. They discarded any
bright-colored material, except for the interior of the nest, and I
supposed this was because they did not wish to attract attention. It
was amusing to see two birds tugging at one piece of twine, neither not
in the least inclined to yield. The hen canaries used to shriek and
scream at each other, and then their mates would interfere, and there
would be a general fight.
In addition to singing when angry, birds sing when sad. One sunny day
last March, when I let my birds out in the elevator, one bird sang so
exquisitely that I could not help saying to myself, “Any one going
by this house would say, ‘What a happy bird!’--whereas I know he is
singing because his little heart is nearly breaking.” I had just found
his mate dead in the aviary. She was a bird I had only had for a short
time, and I think was very delicate. She never got to know me well, and
was not fond of me, and when she for several days detached herself
from other birds, and came about me, I was afraid I was going to lose
her.
I have noticed again and again, without exactly understanding it, that
an ailing bird that is doomed, will follow me about and watch me, as if
seeking the help I cannot give. Any bird is tamer when sick than when
well. A beautiful bullfinch, that I once had, became so tame before he
died that he would go to any member of the family. One day my mother
called me and, pointing to this pretty creature in his shining hood of
black and his crimson breast, she said, “Who is this little negro? He
is sitting on my comb, and he just now dipped his beak in that mug.
What does he want?”
“He is ill,” I said, “and thirsty, and I am going to lose him,” and I
filled the mug with water, whereupon he drank with evident pleasure.
To come back to the matter of birds singing from unhappiness. I have
had persons say to me, “My canary is perfectly happy, he sings all the
time.”
If it is the springtime, I say, “I am sorry for your bird; he is
lonely. Why do you not give him a large cage and get another canary to
be company for him? He might not sing so much, but he would be happier.”
“Oh, I don’t want a large cage--it would be in the way. I think he is
all right.”
Later on birdie often dies, and my friend buys another.
The traffic in canaries is simply enormous. In Germany, France,
England, and Belgium, bird-keepers are hard at work raising young
canaries for the American trade. American bird-importing houses employ
a large number of men who go from one breeding-house to another in
Europe and select the birds to be brought to New York, which is the
distributing depot for the United States and Canada.
If the little bird singing in your window is insignificant in
appearance, but has an exquisite song, he probably came from the Hartz
Mountains. Very likely the principal income of the inhabitants of the
village in which he was hatched, is derived from canary-raising.
They have bird schoolrooms with a school-teacher’s box in which will
be found an old bird, trained by a lark or a nightingale. When the
time comes the cover is raised from the teacher’s box. As he sees the
light he bursts into a sweet, beautiful song, in long, low trills,
deep rolls, flutes, turns, bells, bubbles, and other exquisite
technicalities. The young birds stop feeding to listen, and in time,
they too become perfect. The Germans educate their birds as thoroughly
as they do their human singers, and they command excellent prices for
them.
When the little birds are fully trained, some of the best are kept at
home, and the others come in immense and valuable shipments to America
in the tiny wicker cages. There is often great suffering among them.
The voyage may be rough or disease may break out. The bird-dealers are
said to do all they can to protect them, and only send experienced
men with them, but the birds have many enemies, notably rats. Their
attendants must watch day and night to protect their tiny charges.
It seems as if there might be American schools for canaries, if they
must still be sold for cage-birds. A bird hates travel, and one
shudders to think of the sufferings of our little feathered friends on
the long journeys.
One day I found in Halifax one of these little German birds. He had
just come from New York, and I bought him, took him home, and called
him St. Andreasberg and Andy for a nickname. His only blemish was a
pair of very scaly legs. That meant either old age or disease. However,
they soon improved, though he has never had really smooth legs and
claws.
He was a tiny fellow, pale yellow with a suspicion of black over one
eye. He was not a first-class singer, but he had long, rippling notes,
and when I heard him sing for the first time I was enraptured. I had
never heard a lark sing, nor a nightingale. Andy’s notes gave me some
idea of what their song would be, for he was evidently a trained singer.
I got another little German bird for him, and the two have been model
parents, raising one set of young Germans after another, until now I
have their descendants to the third and fourth generations. They don’t
all sing as well as he does. If I had shut them up in a room with him,
they might have done so, but I let them all go in the aviary, and
mixing with Norwich’s family, they soon learned to sing partly in the
English way.
It is very amusing to hear one of these German birds begin his father’s
strain then break off and sing in Norwich’s style. Only one German
bird--Andy’s first young one--sings almost the same song that his
father does.
I am delighted with the flight of these birds--the offspring of caged
birds. Norwich never learned to fly well. He had a kind of scalloping
flight, but all his young ones fly like wild birds. Andy’s are just as
swift, and I find that these birds raised in an aviary are invariably
stronger and larger than their parents. Greater variety of food and
more exercise account for this.
Though I gave Norwich his liberty, I kept Andy in a cage for years.
His eldest son hated him, and that brings me to one of the mysteries
of bird life. The father and mother are devotion itself while bringing
up a set of nestlings. They really seem to love the tiny creatures
so dependent on them that they would perish if left to themselves.
However, when the time comes for young birds to leave the nest or,
rather, when the time comes for them to feed themselves--for most
parents feed them for some days after they have stepped out, or have
been pushed out of their home--the parents are either indifferent to
them or are apparently cruel to their formerly beloved offspring. They
fly away from them, they often push and beat them, they usually seem
to have no affection for them. Andy fed his little son until he was old
enough to feed himself, then he turned against him and did not want him
in the big cage with him.
I thought this was quite natural, as Andy wished to make another nest,
so I turned the young one into the aviary. He did not forget his
father. Oh no, he remembered him only too well, and whether prompted by
feelings of revenge or not, I cannot tell, but for years when he could
elude me he would follow his father’s cage and fight with him through
the bars until he had plucked out all the short feathers about Andy’s
beak, and made the place raw and bleeding.
Of course I stopped this by keeping the cage out of his way, and I did
not dare to let Andy loose in the aviary until about a year ago. Then
I thought I would try the experiment. Andy had two dangers ahead of
him. He was an old bird--he was old when I got him, and I had had him
several years--and his son would certainly seek his life. However, I
let him and his mate out on the roof-veranda. They got on beautifully,
this pair of elderly birds. There was no affection for the cage in
their tiny breasts. They forsook it, moped if I put them back in it,
built nests as high up as birds that had never been in a cage, fought
the son and came out even--a little exercise is good for a bird. I
believe more caged winged creatures die from monotony than anything
else--and they are to-day living happily in the aviary with big and
little birds.
It is wonderful how aviary life preserves birds. Last summer there was
a number of very fine English birds for sale in a store, and I watched
one among them with interest for weeks. All his companions were sold,
and he was left.
One day I said to the bird-dealer, “Give him to me to take home. He
wants special attention and food.”
“Take him,” he said, “he is dying with asthma.”
I took the bird home, named him the Britisher, and let him loose on the
veranda, found he was frightened to death and could not fly, and put
him in a large cage. For weeks he had egg-food, bread and milk, crushed
hemp, plenty of green stuff, all kinds of seeds, in fact anything he
wanted to eat. Then I once more opened his cage door. He sat about for
a few days, then sallied forth, learned to fly, and stole a mate from
another canary, one of my swift-flying, aviary-hatched birds; then with
fearful recklessness he chose the most dangerous corner of the veranda
for a nest, close to the spot my Brazil cardinals considered sacred
to themselves. I don’t know why they did not drive him away, or kill
him. For days he sat complacently near them, guarding himself from the
attacks of the swift flyer, whose mate he had stolen.
I put some food and water on a shelf near him, for if he descended on
the floor he was at a disadvantage. Finally, I found him with a badly
bitten leg, and put him back in his cage. His little mate followed him
in, and stayed with him until he was able to go out again. He descended
into the aviary with the other birds when the cold weather came, and it
used to delight me to see the big, handsome, delicate creature sitting
breathing spasmodically, but enjoying himself, watching his little mate.
He did not succumb till a week or two ago. When the maid wrote me that
“a big yellow bird had died, and was bearried in the garden, it being
a very hard thing to bearry it,” I knew I had lost my bird of short,
brief friendship--my pet Britisher.
Two of Andy’s grandchildren, little beauties called Cowlie and Tippet,
did a pretty thing last summer that seemed intentional. As the veranda
is large, members of the family often sit out among the birds, and this
pleases the tamest ones very much. They come sociably about us, perch
on our laps or shoulders, peck at our work-baskets and try to run away
with threads that we snatch from them. A favorite trick to play on the
birds is to let them seize the end of the thread on a spool. Thinking
they have a prize they fly away but soon find that their prize is
endless and give it up in disgust.
Cowlie one evening, had been hanging about my sister who was reading in
the sunset. He was singing his prettiest good-night song, and he was
so persistent about it that at last she dropped her book and began to
praise him.
He listened with his pretty yellow head on one side, then flew
downstairs and came back with his young brother Tippet, who is as fine
a singer as he is, and a remarkable little bird. When he was still a
baby and being fed by his parents I have seen him fill his beak with
the egg-food and feed other babies younger than himself.
Having brought Tippet to my sister, Cowlie began a duet with him,
and until it was time for them to fly to their perch for the night,
delighted us with an exquisite flow of rippling bird-music. I do not
know a prettier sight than a little bird in full song. My young Germans
often lift one claw as they sing and distend their little throats till
we laugh at them, and tell them they look as if they were trying to
raise tiny yellow beards.
One day I got one of these aviary-hatched young ones and put him in a
cage. He was not frightened, but he was so puzzled at my action that he
did not know what to do. What was the cage anyway, and what were the
perches for? It never seemed to occur to him to light on them. He clung
uncomfortably to the side of the cage till I at last took pity on him
and let him fly out to the trees of the aviary.
The number of nests that the canaries made did not embarrass me, but
what should I do with the eggs. I could not treat them as I did the
pigeon eggs, and I was not willing to raise young birds and give to
friends to put in tiny cages. I at last hit upon the expedient of
visiting my canary nests every few days, and taking out a certain
number of eggs till they were all gone. The canaries did not care much
about eating them, but Dan, the mockingbird, was delighted to have
fresh eggs for breakfast, and would dart upon them with avidity.
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