A HUMMINGBIRD, AND NATIVE AND FOREIGN FINCHES
The bird that paid the briefest visit to my aviary was a hummingbird. I
had him for a day, then there was a rush of wings and he was gone. My
first experience with this interesting and tiniest member of the bird
race was in California. While sauntering one day about the beautiful
grounds of the Belmont School a lad said to me, “Come and see a new
bird’s nest.” He took me to a spot close to a rustic bridge where, in
the long blades of what we in the East call “ribbon grass,” and only
a few feet from the ground, a hummingbird had fastened an exquisite,
fairylike cup, made of the softest plant down.
There sat the mother bird on two pure white eggs, gazing calmly at
the schoolboy who, with a number of his friends, visited her daily.
One boy got into serious trouble for, with mistaken zeal, he tried to
feed bread-crumbs to the little mother, and brought down on his head a
severe reprimand from the older lads.
As I hung over the dainty nest I wondered whether the hummingbird
had had an eye for the beautiful, in choosing this spot to bring
up her nestlings. Just below her home, a small brook or “creek” as
Californians say, ran among great clumps of calla lilies. Among the
lilies, lived several frogs, and as we leaned over the rustic bridge
above them, we used to call “Little brother,” and rouse one fat frog
who would respond, “Lit-tle Bro-ther, Lit-tle Bro-ther,” till the other
frogs would take up the friendly refrain and send it resounding away up
the creek.
These schoolboys were the best boys that I ever saw to birds.
Two hundred of them went daily to and fro in the finely wooded
school-grounds, thirty-five acres in extent, and every one seemed to be
mindful of the head master’s strict injunction that no one should kill
any birds but a bluejay.
All the song-birds were fearless, and rewarded the boys by constant
and exquisite music. The hummingbirds were the boys’ chief favorites,
and early one morning when they found a number of their pets chilled
and benumbed on the ground they took them up, administered sugar and
water, and when the little creatures had become quite warm, and the
genial Californian sun was well up in the sky, they gave them their
liberty, and rejoiced to see these brilliant jewels of the air darting
thankfully away.
My next experience with a hummingbird was in Canada. During our
pleasant summer weather we always had, if in the city, window-boxes
full of nasturtiums, and to these boxes several hummingbirds came
daily. Whenever we heard the rapid vibration of our brilliant-winged
visitors conversation was hushed in the rooms inside.
One summer evening a man brought me a young hummingbird, and said that
his cat had caught it, but fortunately he had been able to rescue it
before any harm had been done. The little bird was cold and feeble, and
taking him in my hand I put his head against my face. After the manner
of young hummingbirds with their parents, before they leave the nest,
he put his tiny bill into my mouth and thrust out an extremely long and
microscopic tongue in search of food.
He soon discovered that he was not with his parents. I had neither
honey nor insects for him. However, I did the next best thing, and sent
to a druggist for the purest honey that he had. In the meantime, I put
my tiny visitor on the window-boxes. The old hummingbirds must have
taken all the honey, for he seemed to find nothing there to satisfy
him until I put some of that the druggist sent into the blossoms. I
held them to his bill and he drank greedily, then, after looking around
the room, he flew up to a picture frame, put his head under his wing,
and went to sleep.
The next morning at daylight I looked up at the picture. The
hummingbird woke up, said “Peep, peep!” a great number of times, in a
thin, sweet voice, no louder than a cricket’s chirp, but did not come
down.
I got up, filled a nasturtium with honey, pinned it to a stick, and
held it up to my little visitor, who was charmed to have his breakfast
in bed. Finally he condescended to come down, visited other flowers
and had more drinks, then I opened the window and told him he was too
lovely and too exquisite an occupant for an aviary, and he had better
seek his brilliant brothers of the outer air.
He went like a flash of sunshine, and I have never regretted releasing
him, for I would rather have had an eagle die on my hands than this
tiny, painted beauty. Hummingbirds have been kept in captivity when
great care has been exercised in providing for them. A conservatory or
hothouse is a good place for them, for there they get the sun’s rays
which are absolutely essential to their well-being, and they also find
on the plants the nearest approach to their natural food.
The objection to this method of keeping these fragile birds is that
their delicate frames are quickly injured by coming into contact with
hard substances during their rapid flight. The better way is to enclose
them inside a mosquito netting stretched on a frame. The best way of
all is never to confine them--to give them entire liberty, for of all
birds the hummingbird is the least suitable for a life of languishing
captivity.
Purple finches have been very favorite pets of mine. Those that I
have had have been quiet and amiable, and among the most good-natured
and obliging of my birds. The first time I heard them sing I was
enraptured. Their song was so sweet, so modest, so melodious. One finch
I possessed amused me greatly. He fell into a kind of slavery to a
siskin, who followed him and worried him until he at last consented to
help her make a nest, in which there were some fine young ones that
might have turned out promising hybrids if some wicked, larger bird
had not one day killed the neat, determined little mother. I found her
headless body beside her nest. She had died in defense of her home.
One of the gallinules had probably come along and killed her when she
refused to leave her nest.
Her death was a tragedy, but it left the hen-pecked finch free, and
he soon devoted himself to his best-loved bird--a female finch of his
own class. He adored this shy, second mate--the siskin had been a bold
little thing. I often opened the door of the veranda-room for him and
sat quietly in a corner while he led in the finch so that they could
be away from the rougher birds outside.
Picking up a little bit of wool or hair in his beak the finch would
elevate his head-feathers till they almost formed a crest, and would
extend his reddish wings and shake them till they looked like a
hummingbird’s. Then, making a pretty, coaxing noise, he would spin
round and round the room in a kind of skirt dance.
The female teased him a good deal by looking the other way and
pretending not to see him, but finally he persuaded her to make a nest,
where she laid eggs and hatched them, but the young ones only lived a
short time--I think because she was shy and easily frightened from them.
She almost fell a victim to another tragedy, for one day, on stepping
to the veranda, I found her swinging from a branch by her slender
neck. I ran to her, and found that a long hair had become fastened
round her neck, and if I had not opportunely appeared she would soon
have strangled to death. Fortunately she seemed none the worse for her
adventure.
She was a brave little bird, and one habit of hers used to amuse me
immensely. She was a great bather, and enjoyed her baths keenly during
mild weather. Unlike many of my birds, who absolutely would not bathe
when the cold days came, she kept on, but as if urged to her ablutions
by a sense of duty she cried all the time she was bathing.
“Wee, wee!” she would exclaim, as she splashed into the water, then
rose up tremblingly, “This water is dreadfully cold, but I must bathe.
Wee, wee!” and down she would go again. I kept the aviary quite cool in
the winter, but any birds that liked could sit near the hot-water pipes.
Very different from our native finches are the little foreigners of
the same name. I am informed that there are thousands and thousands of
these tiny foreign finches brought to America from Africa, Asia, and
Australia. Some are only two and a half inches long, some are four, few
are as large as the average canary.
Many of these finches are bred in captivity, but in most cases they are
wild, and are caught by natives with more or less cruelty. Some of the
African finches are said to be stupefied by the smoke of fires built
under their roosting-places. They drop into blankets spread by the
cunning Negroes and are given to captains of vessels in exchange for
mock jewelry or rum.
On shipboard they are placed in boxes with wire fronts and their little
anxious faces rise tier on tier. The voyage is long, and overcrowding
and disease do their work. The wonder is that any survive. Fancy the
contrast between the splendors of the African forest and the horrors of
this crowded ship!
Upon arriving in America the bird-dealers take the tiny captives in
hand, open their filthy cages, put them in clean ones, and exhibit
them in their windows.
I do not believe that there is any overpowering desire on the part of
the American public to possess these fragile foreigners. However, the
bird-dealer must live, and when passers-by see the pale blue, ruby,
lavender, or orange-colored little beauties in the windows, they buy
them and kindly and ignorantly set about keeping them. Of course, the
birds in most cases die, but the Negro goes on getting his rum, the
captain gets his money, and the dealer makes a living.
I believe the average person would rather have a canary than a finch.
The canary is used to this climate and the finch is not. Why not have
all this traffic in caged birds supervised by humane societies? I do
not wish to reflect upon the character of all bird-dealers. Many of
them are honest men, and some of them I know really love their birds.
There are, however, many dealers who are in the business solely to make
money, and as long as they are permitted to do as they please, birds
will suffer.
Humane societies are not money-making concerns. The members usually
consist of the most altruistic citizens of any place. They wish to
do what is for the good of their village, town, or city. It would
certainly be better for the birds and better for the public to have
them regulate this traffic.
I had only two pairs of foreign finches. I would buy no more when I
learned how they were captured. The first were cutthroats, and dear
little birds they were, so devoted to each other and so surprised to
find that the bird world was not full of good little creatures like
themselves. When other birds boxed their ears they would fly to each
other, rub each other’s heads, and murmur consolation.
They were fawn-colored birds, delicately mottled on the breast, with
dark-brown spots. The male only had the red stripe across the throat,
that gives him his dreadful name. They were very tame, and often while
I stood close to them the male, as if struck by a sudden thought, would
jump up, dance up and down on his tiny feet, turning his body from side
to side as he did so, and sing a hoarse little song. The song and dance
were so comical that I frequently burst out laughing, but his feelings
never seemed hurt, and he soon broke out again.
In the intervals between his dancing he would press close to his
diminutive mate--she was much smaller than a canary--and carried on his
favorite occupation of gently rubbing her head with his beak. Once,
when she was struck by a large bird, I saw her fly right to him, and it
was very pretty to observe the intensely affectionate, sympathetic way
in which he went all over her head with his tiny beak, as if to say,
“Which is the sore place?--let me rub it for you.”
They were so devoted to each other that they invariably kept together
when flying from one part of the aviary to the other, so that one
day I was surprised to see them separated. I looked about and found
that they had made a nest over some hot-water pipes. These little
birds are very prolific, and hatch young ones freely in captivity. A
lady is reported to have had from one pair in three years, as many as
forty-five broods--altogether over two hundred and forty eggs, from
which one hundred and seventy-six were hatched. I hoped very much that
I might have some tiny cutthroats, but the nest was in too warm a
place, and the eggs did not amount to anything.
A new bird, on going into an aviary, usually chooses a pet place for
sleeping and resting, and keeps to it. The little cutthroats chose
their place in some fir trees near the doves. The doves pushed them
about a little, but the cutthroats soon learned to avoid them.
The only birds that conquered the doves were the Java sparrows. These
sparrows are nice little birds, but I never had a high opinion of their
intelligence, until I saw how they dominated these same stubborn doves.
They never bothered the doves in summer, but every winter the Javas
persisted in sleeping between them on cold nights. On going into the
aviary after dark, I would see one Java tucked between the doves, and
another on the outside of one of them.
The clever little things had discovered that the doves’ bodies were
warm and comforting. I was puzzled to know how they maintained their
footing, for the doves gave resounding slaps of their wings to any
little bird who went too near them.
One night I discovered the Javas’ trick. When the dove lifted its
wing to strike, the Java slipped under it and missed the force of the
blow. After a time the dove got tired of beating, and the Java went to
sleep. There were many other birds in the aviary, but the Javas never
attempted to sleep near any of them but the ringdoves or the white
doves.
After I had had Father Cutthroat nearly a year, he vanished
mysteriously, and poor Mrs. Cutthroat in her desolation behaved very
badly. She would slyly watch my Bengalese finches--two other tiny birds
that looked like fawn and white butterflies--and as soon as they made a
nest she would drive them from it, and lay eggs herself in the usurped
place.
This excited the Bengalese birds. The male would dance up and down and
sing his little song that sounded like, “Hardly able, set the table;
hardly able, set the table!” But if he approached the nest, Widow
Cutthroat would rise, lean over the edge, sway to and fro, and make a
hissing noise like a little snake.
In spite of her apparent devotion to a particular nest, she never kept
to it, and as soon as the Bengalese pair made a new one, she would
take it from them. I excused her bad conduct on the plea that she was
grieving over the loss of her devoted mate. Where could he be? I looked
high and low in the aviary below, and the roof-veranda above--if he
were dead I would at least find his body. It was impossible for him to
escape through the fine wire netting.
[Illustration: Flying Squirrels
Page 273]
Finally, his body or skeleton did appear, in a sudden and unexpected
manner. It was immediately below the box of my flying-squirrels. These
squirrels had been in the aviary for a long time. They were beautiful
little creatures with soft, silky fur and very large eyes. I had got
them with the intention of taming them but, unfortunately, they only
came out of their box at night. I often went in and looked long and
earnestly at them as they ran and jumped about searching for food,
but I did not attempt to play with them as I would have disturbed my
sleeping birds.
Their favorite haunt was, of course, the roof-veranda, but I soon
found out that they could not sail horizontally, but only downward. A
favorite sport with them is to run to the top, of a tree, flying down
to the near-by branches of a lower one, run to the top of this, and
then fly down to another. Jumping or springing squirrels would really
be a better name for them.
They were very quiet in their movements, and I do not think the birds
minded them any more than they did the few mice that I could not keep
out of the aviary. The mice were really very amusing, as they crept
quietly from place to place, searching for the scraps of food the birds
had left. They were not afraid of me, and I often smiled as I held
up my lantern and saw them climbing over tree trunks and branches, as
naturally as if they too were birds, and occasionally stopping short,
and peering at me with their beady eyes.
I guessed that the cutthroat had been exploring, and in searching for
a new place for a nest had been led by his curiosity to enter the
squirrels’ open doorway. Resenting the intrusion, they had probably
jumped at him and killed him. I knew that red squirrels would kill
birds, and being now suspicious of these gray gymnasts, I had a
carpenter come and fasten their box outside instead of inside the
netting. Naturally, they did not stay in it, and I hope ran either to
the gardens or the park, where they would find numbers of red squirrels
to play with them.
[Illustration]