“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 eachother’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 abird. 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 burningold 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 inlong 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 lookedexactly 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 greetingeach 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 aweek 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 tryingto 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.
“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 eachother’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 abird. 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 burningold 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 inlong 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 lookedexactly 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 greetingeach 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 aweek 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 tryingto 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.