CRESTED CARDINALS
I shall never forget the day that I bought my first cardinals.
I stood in a Boston bird-dealer’s shop, looking about me at the great
variety of birds. I knew but few of them by name, but I loved them all
and wanted them all.
I was most anxious to have a talking minor--the glossy, dark bird that
is the only one that will reply when spoken to.
On learning that he was twenty dollars, I said that I could not afford
to get him.
A showy redbird that looked too big for his cage next impressed me.
He had a black forehead and chin, a jaunty crest, and a vigorous air,
and his every movement proclaimed the cruelty of imprisoning so active
a bird.
[Illustration: Red Cardinal
Brazilian Cardinal
Page 212]
“What is his name?” I asked.
“Virginia Nightingale.”
James Lane Allen’s charming story about this red cardinal came to my
mind, and I said I would take him. I think I paid four dollars and a
half for him.
An equally attractive bird was one that sat more quietly in his cage--a
beautiful gray bird with a red crest and a red bib. I found that he was
a cardinal from Brazil, and I said I would take him to be a companion
for the other. Alas! I am no seer, and did not anticipate that my two
princely birds with their red heads would become mortal enemies.
In addition to the Brazil, whose price was about the same as that of
the all-red cardinal, I bought a pair of Java sparrows. They were so
neat and handsome with their little gray bodies and their conical
beaks, and white ear-tufts, making them look like tiny old men with big
pink noses, that I could not resist them.
However, I did not like their ruffled plumage and the bare places on
their heads. All Java sparrows, when in condition, should be as smooth
as marble.
The dealer assured me that they had only been pecking each other. I
believed him then. I would not now. I never saw Java sparrows pull
out each other’s feathers, and a bare head to me at this time means
disease or vermin.
However, I got the little birds and was pleased to learn something
about them. They seem to be a kind of English sparrow in their native
country, and do an immense amount of damage to the rice crops, eluding
the natives who try to capture them. They have a very happy, “chuckie,
chuckie,” note, as they fly about an aviary. I have never heard them
warble, but they are said to do so.
To return to the cardinals. I took them with the Javas in the train
with me to Canada, and suffered many pricks of conscience in so doing.
I know how hateful and terrifying railway travel is to birds. Had I
done right to subject them to it? Well, if I had not bought them in
order to give them freedom in a large place, some one would probably
have got them and forced them to spend the rest of their lives in tiny
cages.
The cardinals were apparently none the worse for their day and a half
in the train. When I opened their traveling-cages, they sprang out, ran
over the earth in the aviary, then spread their handsome wings and flew
to tree branches.
I think they were a little surprised at finding they had room enough to
spread their wings. I did not know how long they had been caged. One of
my most exquisite pleasures is to release a bird captive, either in my
aviary or in the open, then to watch him and imagine what his feelings
are.
I probably project a little too much of my own personality into bird
bodies, but by dint of drinking and eating, sleeping, playing, and
passing day after day with bird companions, I feel myself enabled to
interpret some of their bodily and facial expressions, and I can surely
and safely say that the uncaged bird is a happy bird. My Javas did not
stand the journey so well as the cardinals. One of them was weak and
ill, and instead of putting it in a warm, quiet place with its food and
water close at hand, I dosed it with a few drops of brandy and water
and killed it.
This was a blow to me, and out of that failure and many others arose
an intense sympathy for the medical profession. Later on, I naturally
became more experienced in treating sick birds, but often the question
arose: Here are two remedies. One may mean life, the other death. Which
shall I adopt?
At present I practise the Chinese method--I doctor the patient before
he gets ill. In China physicians are said to be paid to keep their
patients in health, and when sickness comes fees are withheld.
All my energies are bent toward keeping my birds in good health, and at
intervals they are caught and examined. I practise with birds the same
method that I advocate in the treatment of children--save the child
before he is lost. That is the only way to have healthy stock of any
kind.
Adults who are hard-hearted never bring me a bird. Little,
tender-souled children constantly bring bird patients to my hospital.
“These children must rob nests,” a skeptical neighbor once remarked, as
she observed children coming toward my house with birds.
“They do not,” I said decidedly. “I assure you that children often
bring me birds at great inconvenience to themselves. They are on their
way to the park or the harbor. They discover a robin or a sparrow, a
finch or a yellowbird fallen from a tree. They turn back and bring it
to me. One little lad going to school the other day, found a sparrow
and came to me with it. He was in a great hurry, but he thought it his
duty to look after the bird.
“If children are trained to be kind to birds when they are young,
they will make laws for their protection when they are grown up, and
will save the committal of a vast amount of cruelty and also enormous
financial loss to the country by the destruction of insect-eating
birds.”
I hope I convinced my neighbor. If she was open to argument, I did.
If she was closed to it, I did not. Some dear, good people adopt the
Scotchman’s knock-down policy: “When you see a boy, give him a crack.
If he hasn’t just been committing some mischief, he is about to do it.”
All my boy neighbors were kind to my birds, and last year they did a
very thoughtful thing for them.
They knew that I was in the habit of renewing the trees in my aviary
every few months by burning old ones and getting some of the colored
people about Halifax to bring in fresh ones from the country.
Last New Year’s the boys asked me if I did not want their Christmas
trees. I said I would be delighted to have them, and one Saturday
morning the boys and girls had a regular jubilee running round the
snow-covered streets dragging the discarded trees after them, and
shouting to other boys to call at the neighbors’ and see if they had
not some to give away.
Some trees were put in the basement, others were dragged gaily
through the halls and up the staircase through Sukey’s room to the
roof-veranda. The birds sat in corners whispering and talking softly,
for they knew the boys quite well and understood that the changing of
the trees meant great amusement and occupation for them.
After the children left I walked about the aviary and glanced
gratefully at the sweet-smelling evergreens. The birds were busy with
exploring expeditions, for each tree had sticking to it bits of tinsel,
twine, or wax. What a story each one might tell if it could speak, of
happy children dancing round its gift-laden branches.
When I brought home my showy cardinal birds all my boy neighbors liked
them. They were both fine singers, though the bird-books give the most
of the praise to the Virginian. He had a powerful, and not always sweet
song, and sometimes it came in long bursts, when it seemed as if the
violence of his execution would rend his lovely red body apart.
He always wound up with a “Chew, chew, chew!” rendered as vigorously
as if he had teeth. I knew he was lonely, for he absolutely and
contemptuously refused to associate with his far-away cousin, the
Brazilian, and there was no other bird suitable for him in the aviary.
So I sent to Boston for a mate for him, and also for one for the
Brazilian. I called the Virginian, Ruby, and the Brazilian, Red-top.
I regretted the latter name. I should have chosen one to better
express the smart, elegant appearance, the pretty manners, and shy,
aristocratic ways of this attractive foreigner.
I loved Ruby, but I adored Red-top, and I liked his song better. There
was not so much of it, and it was not so loud, but he sang nearly all
the time. I called him a conversational singer, for as he walked or
ran over the earth--he rarely hopped--he kept his pretty head moving
from side to side, and talked or sang constantly to himself. “Dee, dee,
dee!” he would say, as he picked up a piece of sand. “Dee, dee, dee!”
he would go on, as his runs brought him within reach of an orange or
a grape, then he would stop an instant to extract some juice with his
strong conical beak.
He had a pair of very smooth dark legs and claws, and always reminded
me of a famous French singer who wears long black gloves with her
evening gowns. Red-top’s elegance was really Parisian, and we all know
Brazilians are fond of Paris; then he had a quick, sharp way of saying
something that sounded like the French “_voyons_!”
I never became tired of watching this pretty bird, and would praise him
unstintedly to his face, for it never seemed to spoil him. The bold
Ruby, on the contrary, if too much petted, would attack some smaller
bird, and “show off” as spoiled children do.
I studied Red-top and found out his tastes. He was a great dandy, and
extravagantly fond of a mirror. I put a hand-glass in the aviary, and
he spent half of his time in front of it, talking, singing, bowing,
tapping it with his beak, and running to and fro before it on his trim
dark legs. He thought there was a bird in the glass, for he often
paused in his song and listened as if to say, “Why don’t you respond,
bird in the glass?”
One day he made a nest before it and slept in it every night with his
beak touching the glass. I tried moving the glass and nest from place
to place, and he would follow them wherever they went. Thinking to
please him, I put a rose-colored lining in the nest. It was not so
bright as his crest, but it drove him far away, and I had to take it
out.
“How pleased he will be to see another Brazilian,” I said to myself,
and in a few weeks I had the felicity of opening another traveling-cage
and allowing another Brazilian to step out and confront my elegant
Red-top. At first they looked exactly alike to me, except that the new
bird’s plumage was rumpled in appearance, causing me to name her Touzle.
I soon found that Touzle was gentle and timid in disposition, her eyes
were smaller, or rather she kept her eyelids closer together than
Red-top did, and that altogether she was one of the best and sweetest
birds in my aviary--and how did Red-top treat her?
Alas! The bird world, like the human world, is full of surprises.
Instead of flying to her with joy and greeting her as a beloved friend
and companion from the far-off Brazilian country, Red-top began to beat
her constantly, rudely, and systematically.
“Why, Red-top; I am ashamed of you,” I said in amazement. “What do you
mean by beating that beautiful, gentle bird?”
He bowed his red crest, sang impatiently something that sounded like,
“I can’t help it; I can’t help it!” and went back to the glass.
I had an illumination. He had mated with the bird in the glass. I took
it from him, and soon he stopped beating Touzle--though for a time I
had to separate them--and little by little began making advances to her
until at last they became such good friends that they never left each
other even for one minute.
If Ruby chased them and drove one to the other end of the aviary there
would be anxious calls and whistles, and they would hasten to rejoin
each other. I was very much interested in their way of greeting each
other, even after a few minutes’ separation. They would bow profoundly,
expand the tail like a fan, and each one would sing a little song. It
was a very pretty bird ceremony. I have seen reunited birds salute each
other by a cry of delight, a rub on the head with the bill, a sharp tap
of affection, such as some parrakeets give, but I never saw any other
of my birds bow and curtsy as the Brazil cardinals do.
The first year I had Touzle they made no nest. The summer before she
came, Red-top had made a fine nest in a fir tree, weaving long grasses
in and out, and shaping it perfectly. The second year they made one
or two nests, but laid no eggs. While on the farm they made several
nests, laid eggs, hatched young ones, and every time either Ruby or the
mockingbird killed their nestlings.
Two years ago I had them up on the roof-veranda where I could watch
them, and they hatched two fine, plump young birds. Most unfortunately
I went too near the nest one day and the young ones seeing me sprang
out, and though I put them back, they would not stay in the nest. They
had long legs and jumped like frogs, and fearing that they would spring
out during the early morning and become chilled, I took them in the
house.
Of course, after removing them from the parents I had to feed them.
Raising young birds, especially insectivorous ones, is a delicate
matter, and after a week or two they languished and soon died. The
little creatures knew me, and would cry for food, and it seemed to me
that I could not give them up. They were so intelligent, so pretty, so
like their parents.
Their attachment for me did not spring alone from their knowledge that
I fed them. A young mouse taught me a valuable truth with regard to the
upbringing of the young of any creature. The mouse was found wandering
over the floor of my study, too young and too foolish to escape. My
sister picked him up and we gave him food, drink, and shelter, yet he
did not prosper.
“He is lonely,” I said at last, “he wants petting,” and I put him up my
sleeve.
Now he was happy. He crouched close to my arm, only sticking his little
nose out to get kind words and morsels of food I tucked up after him.
A young bird is like a young animal, I concluded. They all want petting
and mothering when taken from their parents. Later on, I tried this
plan with the greatest success. After feeding young birds I would talk
to them, tuck them in their nests, and I soon saw by their playful ways
with me that affectionate attention was as necessary as the feeding.
This last summer the Brazilian cardinals built another nest on the
roof-veranda. I had a thick, leafy screen in front of it, and did not
go near it. Weeks went by, and one fine June day I heard the well-known
Brazilian baby-cry in the nest.
I would scarcely allow my family to look at the tree. The birds did not
mind the noise of the children in the near-by gardens, the street cars,
and guns, whistles, and military music of our garrison and maritime
town, but they did not want us to go near them. Our self-denial was
soon rewarded, and one day I had the long-waited-for pleasure of seeing
a fully fledged young Brazilian step from his nest.
He was a little beauty, gray and white, and with a golden brown, not
scarlet crest. I looked forward with interest to his baby moult and
acquisition of the cardinal’s red hat. His hoarse cries for food
were very amusing, and both parents fed him devotedly for some time
after he left the nest. He was inclined to be shy, but after a time
came out from the shelter of the trees, advanced toward the tempting
food-dishes, explored the bathtubs, and had a good dip, flew all about
the roof-veranda, and altogether was a very happy little bird until
one unfortunate day when I took it into my head to examine one of his
claws. It was twisted, and I thought possibly I might do something to
straighten it. I caught him, examined it, found I could do nothing to
help him, and then placed him on the veranda.
To my dismay, almost to my horror, he could barely move. He hobbled
to a corner. He could neither walk nor fly, and crouching in one spot
seemed as if he would die. I soon discovered that though I might
possibly have hurt his claw in trying to straighten it, the real
injury was in the shock to his nerves. I put food and water within his
reach and let him alone. Every night I watched him to see that he got
under shelter, and in a few weeks he managed to hitch himself up to the
higher branches of the trees.
I had waited for four years for a young Brazilian bird, and this was
the result. To add to my distress, Touzle, who had built another
nest--she started by building an addition to the old one, but fearing
vermin I tore it to pieces and she made another--this gentle, amiable
Touzle had just before the baby’s sad experience with me, begun to
show herself in an altogether different light. From being motherly and
amiable she became unmotherly and hateful, until I sometimes wanted to
shake her.
When the poor cardinal baby, so sorely in need of consolation would,
with a nervous and distrustful eye on me, drag himself toward his
lovely-looking mother as she sat on her nest in her shady nook, Touzle
would daintily step off.
With a look at Red-top she would bow her head, spread her tail and
begin to talk to him. Over and over again, whenever the baby came near
them, she did the same thing. She urged Red-top on to beat the young
one, and drive him away from the nest.
I never saw her look so handsome and so attractive as when she would
exhort her mate, and then with him, approach their nestling and drive
him out from the shady corner where the nest was.
I suppose this poor afflicted baby did not suffer as much as I thought
he did. I hope he did not. I could not help imagining him in the
depths of bird despair because his parents had disowned him and I had
forfeited his confidence.
Whatever his feelings were, he did what is a very sensible thing for
any afflicted mortal to do--he ate and drank, and fought. It did me
good to see him lock beaks with his father and stand up to his mother.
Many a thrashing he would have got if he had not squared up to the
vicious old parents and looked and acted as ugly as they did. He never
attacked them, he only defended himself, when to have turned tail might
have meant annihilation.
[Illustration]