A MOTHER CAREY’S CHICKEN
Perhaps the strangest pet I had in my aviary was a black bird that was
brought to the door one evening by a boy. He said that a young man
had picked up this pigeon on the common, and had told him to bring it
to me. I found that it was a sooty-looking bird, with a tubular bill
and white feathers at the end of its tail--evidently a Mother Carey’s
chicken--that had probably been flying across the peninsula on which
the city of Halifax is built, and had dropped in exhaustion. I saw that
it was ill, and as soon as I could, hurried to the fish market and
interviewed an old sailor who had fished on the banks of Newfoundland.
He told me that flocks of these petrels used to follow his ship,
eating the fish livers that were thrown overboard and that floated for
days behind them. He had no liver on hand, but he gave me a whiting,
for he said that fish would also float on the water.
I knew nothing about these deep-sea matters--I only know Mother Carey’s
chickens by seeing them follow Atlantic steamers; but finding that the
petrel would not eat the whiting, I went back to the sailor and got
some liver that he had managed to secure for me.
The petrel would not eat this either, so I called my sister and asked
her to kindly get out our feeding-sticks. After cutting up pieces of
the liver she took them one by one on her sticks and dropped them into
the bird’s long bill that I held open for her. After a meal was over
I wiped his face and put him on the floor, and he scuttled under the
radiator. One day I put him in a bath, but he went right under the
water, and I had to take him out.
He never fed himself, and three times a day we got out our sticks and
the fish liver. He was gentle but feeble, and was more lively at night
than during the day.
When displeased he made a peeping noise, and at all times he possessed
a strong and peculiar smell.
I had him for three weeks, and for a time he improved, and would fly
low over the floor, ascending and descending as if going over waves of
the sea.
I hoped that he would soon get entirely well, so that I might give him
his liberty, but he suddenly became very ill and died, regretted on
account of his gentle disposition.
We photographed him before losing him, and found him a good bird to
pose. Some of our birds were most aggravating when they saw a camera.
They were not afraid of it, but they acted like naughty children,
getting behind it and under it, and everywhere but in front of it.
Many an hysterical laugh have we had when, time after time, just as a
successful group of birds, dogs, cats, or hens had been placed in good
position, half our pets would get up and saunter away.
At last the sight of the camera produced such a state of merriment in
the family that my sister, who had infinite patience with our pets,
would send us all away, and manage the four and two-footed creatures
alone.
In speaking of unmanageable pets, I must make honorable mention of our
fox terrier Billy, who was with the birds so much that he might almost
be called an inhabitant of the aviary. He did not love the birds--he
was jealous of them--but he never harmed them and, moreover, they knew
he would not harm them, and had no fear of him. He never played with
them, but he would wallow with Sukey in the accumulation of scraps,
seeds, grass, and other rubbish on sweeping days in the aviary, until I
have seen the maid gently push them both aside with her broom.
Billy would cheerfully pose when he saw a camera, and follow us
whenever we went to the photographers in the town. One day when my
mother was having her picture taken, Billy placed himself at her feet.
The photographer took him up and lifted him to what he considered a
more attractive position.
I shall never forget the look of doggish reproach that Billy gave him
as he walked back to his original position, and held it. It seemed to
say, “Don’t you know, sir, that I am a dog that is used to posing? I
know how to show off my good points better than you do.”
Strangers sometimes remarked that no member of our family was
photographed without this pet dog.
“We cannot help it,” we used to reply, “Billy follows us and gets into
the picture. We can’t keep him out.”
Dear little dog! He was the last of the real animals in “Beautiful
Joe,” to leave us, and a year ago, at the age of sixteen years and
a half, lay down one day to die, as calmly and peacefully as he had
lived.
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