SWEET-SWEET AND THE SAINT OF THE AVIARY
Among the books that I bought when I started my aviary was one that
amused me immensely. It was a clever book, but the description of each
bird almost always began with the assertion that this particular bird
was the best, the brightest, and the prettiest bird of the entire race
of birds.
I have not had the variety of birds described in that book, but now
that I am attempting to relate the particulars of some of my pets,
I find myself tempted to ascend up to the same heights of eulogy.
Each bird is the best bird. Each one is the most beautiful, the most
lovable--one has to exercise self-restraint to avoid exaggeration.
I have had quite a large number of birds that I cannot write about at
length. I will merely mention some of them.
I one day expressed a wish to have some bluejays in the presence of a
bird-fancier, and shortly afterward he arrived with a pair that he had
bought from a woman near Halifax, in one of the colored settlements
composed of descendants of Southern Negroes. They were handsome birds,
and as I released them in the aviary I could not help thinking that if
they were foreigners how greatly they would be sought after.
Their appearance in the aviary occasioned the greatest consternation
among some of my birds, whose instinct recognized in them hereditary
enemies. This instinct of fear in these partly domesticated birds is
the same that makes them cower when a hawk passes over their cages.
One indigo bunting fainted and fell motionless on the ground. I took
her upstairs where she would not see them, and the other birds soon
quieted down, for the blue jays went into a corner and stayed there,
only occasionally uttering harsh, unhappy cries.
I wondered how they had ever contented themselves in a small cage with
the colored woman, if they were so unhappy in my aviary. I begged them
to have patience, that there were fires in the forests about the city,
and as soon as they were extinguished I would set my prisoners free.
Finally a bright morning came, when I put them outside the window, and
they flew swiftly away, and I hope are living happily in my beautiful
native land.
Shortly after they left me, a small boy arrived at our door with a tiny
cage, scarcely suitable for a canary.
“I heard you had a pair of bluejays you don’t want,” he remarked
composedly, “and I thought I would take them and keep them in this
cage.”
I tried to make him view this proposition from the bluejays’ point of
view, and embraced the occasion of preaching again the doctrine that it
is a cruel thing for a boy to rob a bird’s nest, or confine a bird in a
cage. Also, that I wanted no eggs from nests, and no nestlings, except
those that had wandered far from their parents, and who would starve if
left to themselves.
I found no trouble in getting boys to understand this. Boys and girls
are just what the grown people make them. If we are kind to birds they
will imitate us.
Among the small birds that I have owned were some interesting native
siskins, that I found languishing downtown in a tiny cage one hot
August day. I bought them, and the delight of these wild birds on
getting into roomy quarters was very touching.
They flew at once to the spruce and fir trees, and began eating their
tips. Subsequently I gave them their liberty, and they raced each other
to the tops of the tallest trees they could find.
A smaller bird than the siskin was a tiny, yellow warbler whose eyes
seemed unnaturally large for the size of its body. A little girl
brought it to me one morning, closely folded in her moist hands.
“It is a weeny thing,” she said in an awed voice. “I saw it in our
stable. It would not go away, so I walked up to it and put my hands
over it, for I was afraid pussy would get it.”
“It is one of the many warblers in this neighborhood,” I said. “They
often come to the wire netting and talk to my birds. I will take good
care of it.”
I intended to release the little creature as soon as he got rested, but
he became so tame and followed me about with such unmistakable devotion
shining from his dark eyes that I could not bear to part from him.
Sweet-Sweet I named my new pet, and one Sunday morning I was
inexpressibly grieved to find that I had accidentally struck the little
fellow as he came too near me.
I picked him up and sprinkled water on him whenever he had a fit or
seizure, in which he either lay still or fluttered wildly to and fro.
I did not go to church, but devoted myself to poor Sweet-Sweet, and
encouraged him to eat when he came out of his spasms. By night-time he
was almost well, and next day had quite recovered.
Unfortunately, and to my very great surprise, my bird with the melting
eyes was a great fighter, and would attack birds so much larger than
himself that I trembled for his safety. He was not nearly so large
as my canaries, but he would fight any of them with the greatest
intrepidity.
I really should have allowed this little beautiful but mischievous bird
to fly away when the autumn came, but I had grown so much attached to
him and he was so much at home in the aviary that I could not make up
my mind to let him go. I also had a little curiosity to see whether I
could keep a warbler all winter.
He got on nicely until one unfortunate day, when he made up his bird
mind to bully one of my Japanese robins.
I have never found these robins quarrelsome, but this one deeply
resented Sweet-Sweet’s interference with the rapid tenor of his way. I
was just wondering what I should do with my naughty warbler, for I knew
his gay, impatient spirit would fret itself to death in a cage, when
one day I found that the Japanese bird had flown into a rage with him,
and had almost torn him to pieces.
I was shocked--I can hardly express the short, sharp pain I felt, when
I picked up that tiny, beloved bird body. Only a bird, but how dear! If
I had only let him fly away with the other yellow warblers to some fair
southern land! I selected two of the greenish-yellow feathers, crossed
them, and put them in my bird diary with the mournful entry of his
death.
Sweet-Sweet had been a worse fighter than any English sparrow I ever
saw, and a worse bully and fighter than Sweet-Sweet, was another small
bird I possessed for years--a brilliant red, blue, and gold nonpareil.
He was not brilliant when I got him. I had seen pictures of nonpareils,
and had asked a bird-dealer to get me a pair. He sent them to me
one cold winter evening, and to my dismay, on opening the birds’
traveling-cages I found that one of them was diseased, his red neck
being bare of feathers.
I wrote the bird-dealer an indignant letter, reproving him for sending
a sick bird on a journey, and telling him that I never again would buy
a bird from him. The proper way, of course, to discourage the traffic
in birds is not to buy them. This dealer probably cared little for my
remonstrance.
I put this little sufferer at once into a large cage, with fresh seeds
and water. He had a succession of fits, and tumbled and fluttered about
his cage. However, in between the fits he would eat and drink, while
I sat admiring his courage. When bedtime came he heroically mounted a
perch and sat there, so weak that he rocked to and fro for a long time
before his little claws got a firm grip of the perch. Finally he was
able to put his head under his wing, or back of his wing, as I always
wish to say, and went to sleep.
When I read bird stories as a child I always fancied that a bird
put the head under the side of the wing next the breast, whereas he
reaches back and tucks the head behind the wing. The position looks
uncomfortable, but I suppose the bird knows best about that.
As I have said before, I was disappointed in the appearance of these
dull, olive-green nonpareils. They were young ones, and I had to wait
three years for them to become like the beautiful birds in my books,
with the violet heads and necks, the partly red and partly green backs.
They are natives of Mexico and Central America, and rarely get farther
north than northern Illinois and Kansas. They used to be trapped in
great numbers and shipped to the Northern States, there to languish
in captivity. They are partly insectivorous birds, and miss their
accustomed diet in cage life. If canaries required insect food they
never would have become the highly domesticated birds that they are.
I put my sick nonpareil into the cage with a Java sparrow that was also
out of condition. I scarcely thought the new-comer would live through
the night, but my mother, who is an early riser, called out to me in
the morning that the little Southerner was as “pert” as possible.
I had a hard time with him, as I had also with Java. They both lost all
their feathers. The nonpareil was the worst looking bird I ever saw. I
called him Baby, and he was soon a naked, skinny, scaly-legged baby,
with nothing attractive about him but his soft, dewy eyes. I kept him
and Java oiled and secluded in my study. They were not ugly to me, but
strangers were apt to burst into peals of laughter at sight of their
featherless bodies.
Every night I woke them up about eleven o’clock to take a late supper,
for they became rather indifferent about their food, though apparently
they did not suffer. I dreaded the long winter nights for them in their
enfeebled condition. Java became very tame, and when I tapped the cage
and said, “Come out for a walk,” he would hop all around the room. Of
course, there was no flying for either of them in their condition.
Everything passes with time, and in a few months my birds’ purplish-red
bodies became dark in hue, then crowds of downy pin-feathers jostled
each other. In a short time my hideous little pets were, one, the
exquisitely-hued nonpareil, the other the modest gray and white
sparrow, with feathers overlapping so smoothly that he looked like a
carved bird.
I regret to say his prosperity, instead of sweetening Baby’s
disposition, soured it, and when I put him into the aviary he speedily
took to himself the rôle of persecutor. He was so small that he could
not do much harm, but he used to fight continually, often in a very
amusing fashion.
One day I saw him attack a fawn-colored, foreign finch that we called
the Widow. She was eating seeds from a box, and Baby tried to push
her away. The Widow bit him and would not yield. Then Baby seized
her tail and pulled it. She did not seem to mind this, so he pulled
harder. Then, as she was still indifferent, he fell upon her and gave
her a beating and forced her to leave him in possession of the field.
This was not serious, but the naughty Baby progressed in wickedness,
and finally whipped a timid canary so violently that she died, and
also struck a Bengalese finch a blow that was the cause of his death.
Bullying was bad enough, but this was murder, so at last I kept the
bad little nonpareil in my room the most of the time. He perched on a
cage in the wall near my mirror, and seemed to take a certain amount
of satisfaction in being with me. He lived for several years, and only
died a few months ago. I noticed one day that he seemed very much
excited, and leaving my room flew into other bedrooms--a thing he
rarely did. One morning a little later I found him lying motionless on
the floor. His little mischievous life was over, and I was sorry for
it, for when he was good he was “very, very good.”
The saint of the aviary is little Blue Boy, the indigo bunting, alive
yet, and prosperous, though I have feared for his life again and again.
I never saw him strike a bird. I never saw him do anything naughty.
He is quiet and gentle in his habits, never interferes with the other
little birds, gets up early, waits patiently for his food till others
have finished, retires to quiet corners and sings his little tinkling
songs, goes to bed betimes, and if it is a warm moonlight night, is apt
to wake up three or four times and sing to himself, not loudly, but
loudly enough to cheer any light sleeper.
[Illustration: Indigo Bunting
Page 260]
He never chose a mate. He never seemed to want one. He is the most
quiet, self-contained, meek little bird imaginable. If any bird chases
him he flies to his little box in my room. The only thing he begs for
is a cockroach. He will hop toward me in the morning with a pleading
expression, if I have not one of the most unprepossessing members of
the beetle tribe for him.
At one time I started cockroach culture in a companion box to that
of the meal-worms. My mother was resigned, but doubtful about the
experiment, and I noticed that the cockroaches all fell victims to some
sudden calamity during one of my absences from home.
However, by diligent search, we can usually find two or three around
the hot-water pipes at night, and the maid I have taking care of the
birds, writes me that she tries hard to get “a Cockroach every Night
for the Little Blue Bird.”
[Illustration]