Part 27

Wilson gives us the following interesting anecdote of one of these birds: "Passing through an orchard one morning, I caught a young tanager that had apparently just left the nest. I carried it with me to the Botanic Garden, put it in a cage, and hung it on a large pine-tree near the nest of two orioles, hoping that their tenderness might induce them to feed the young bird. But the poor orphan was neglected, till at last a tanager, probably its own parent, was seen fluttering round the cage, and endeavoring to get in. Finding this impracticable, it flew off, and soon returned with food in its bill, feeding the young one till sunset: it then took up its lodgings on the higher branches of the same tree. In the morning, as soon as day broke, he was again seen most actively engaged; and so he continued for three or four days. He then appeared extremely solicitous for the liberation of his charge, using every expression of anxiety, and every call and invitation that nature had put in his power, for him to come out. Unable to resist this powerful pleader, I opened the cage, took out the prisoner, and restored it to its parent, who, with notes of great exultation, accompanied its flight to the woods."

THE MOCKING-BIRD.

The mocking-bird selects the place for his nest according to the region in which he resides. A solitary thorn bush, an almost impenetrable thicket, an orange or cedar-tree, or a holly bush, are favorite spots; and sometimes he will select a low apple or pear-tree. The nest is composed of dry twigs, straw, wool, and tow, and lined with fine fibrous roots. During the time when the female is sitting, neither cat, dog, animal, or man, can approach the nest without being attacked.

But the chief vengeance of the bird is directed against his mortal enemy, the black snake. Whenever this reptile is discovered, the male darts upon it with the rapidity of an arrow, dexterously eluding its bite, and striking it violently and incessantly upon the head. The snake soon seeks to escape; but the intrepid bird redoubles his exertions; and as the serpent's strength begins to flag, he seizes it, and lifts it up from the ground, beating it with his wings; and when the business is completed, he returns to his nest, mounts the summit of the bush, and pours out a torrent of song, in token of victory.

His strong, musical voice is capable of every modulation. His matin notes are bold and full, consisting of short expressions of two, three, or five and six syllables, generally interspersed with imitations, all of them uttered with great emphasis and rapidity. His expanded wings, and tail glistening with white, and the buoyant gayety of his action, arrest the eye as his song does the ear.

The mocking-bird loses little of the power and energy of his music by confinement. When he commences his career of song, it is impossible to stand by uninterested. He whistles for the dog; Caesar starts up, wags his tail, and runs to meet his master. He squeaks out like a hurt chicken, and the hen hurries about with hanging wings and bristling feathers, clucking to protect her injured brood. The barking of the dog, the mewing of the cat, the creaking of the passing wheelbarrow, follow with great truth and rapidity. He repeats the tune taught him by his master, though of considerable length, fully and faithfully. He runs over the quiverings of the canary, and the clear whistlings of the red-bird, with such superior execution and effect, that the mortified songsters feel their own inferiority, while he seems to triumph in their defeat by redoubling his exertions.

THE BALTIMORE ORIOLE.

A correspondent of Wilson furnishes the following account of an oriole: "This bird I took from the nest when very young. I taught it to feed from my mouth; and it would often alight on my finger, and strike the end with its bill, until I raised it to my mouth, when it would insert its bill, to see what I had for it to eat. In winter, spring, and autumn, it slept in a cage lined with cotton batting. After I had put it in, if I did not close up the apertures with cotton, it would do so itself, by pulling the cotton from the sides of the cage till it had shut up all the apertures; I fed it with sponge cake; and when this became dry and hard, it would take a piece and drop it into the saucer, and move it about till it was soft enough to be eaten.

"In very cold weather, the oriole would fly to me, and get under my cape, and nestle down upon my neck. It often perched upon my finger, and drew my needle and thread from me when I was sewing. At such times, if any child approached me and pulled my dress, it would chase after the offender, with its wings and tail spread, and high resentment in its eye. In sickness, when I have been confined to the bed, the little pet would visit my pillow many times during the day, often creeping under the bed-clothes. At such times, it was always low-spirited. When it wanted to bathe, it would approach me with a very expressive look, and shake its wings. On my return home from a call or visit, it would invariably show its pleasure by a peculiar sound."

THE WREN.

Wilson furnishes us with the following anecdotes of this little favorite:--

"In the month of June, a mower once hung up his coat under a shed in the barn: two or three days elapsed before he had occasion to put it on again. When he did so, on thrusting his arm into the sleeve, he found it completely filled with rubbish, as he expressed it, and, on extracting the whole mass, found it to be the nest of a wren, completely finished, and lined with a large quantity of feathers. In his retreat he was followed by the forlorn little proprietors, who scolded him with great vehemence for thus ruining the whole economy of their household affairs."

"A box fitted up in the window of a room where I slept, was taken possession of by a pair of wrens. Already the nest was built, and two eggs laid; when one day, the window being open as well as the room door, the female wren, venturing too far into the room, was sprung upon by grimalkin, and instantly destroyed. Curious to know how the survivor would demean himself, I watched him carefully for several days. At first he sang with great vivacity for an hour or so; but, becoming uneasy, went off for half an hour. On his return, he chanted again as before, went to the top of the house, stable, and weeping willow, that his mate might hear him; but seeing no appearance of her, he returned once more, visited the nest, ventured cautiously into the window, gazed about with suspicious looks, his voice sinking into a low, melancholy note, as he stretched his neck in every direction.

"Returning to the box, he seemed for some minutes at a loss what to do, and soon went off, as I thought altogether, for I saw no more of him that day. Towards the afternoon of the second day, he again made his appearance, accompanied with a new female, who seemed exceedingly timorous and shy, and after great hesitation entered the box. At this moment, the little widower and bridegroom seemed as if he would warble out his very life with ecstasy of joy. After remaining about half a minute inside, they began to carry out the eggs, feathers, and some of the sticks, supplying the place of the two latter with materials of the same sort, and ultimately succeeded in raising a brood of seven young ones, all of whom escaped in safety."

THE PURPLE MARTIN.

This well-known bird is a general inhabitant of the United States, and a particular favorite wherever he takes up his abode. "I never met with more than one man," says Wilson, "who disliked the martins, and would not permit them to settle about his house. This was a penurious, close-fisted German, who hated them because, as he said, 'they ate his peas.' I told him he must certainly be mistaken, as I never knew an instance of martins eating peas; but he replied, with great coolness, that he had often seen them 'blaying round the hive, and going schnip, schnap,' by which I understood that it was his bees that had been the sufferers; and the charge could not be denied."

THE SWALLOW.

In England, in one corner of the piazza of a house, a swallow had erected her nest, while a wren occupied a box which was purposely hung in the centre. They were both much domesticated. The wren became unsettled in its habits, and formed a design of dislodging the swallow; and having made an attack, actually succeeded in driving her away. Impudence gets the better of modesty; and this exploit was no sooner performed, than the wren removed every part of the materials to her own box, with the most admirable dexterity. The signs of triumph appeared very visible; it fluttered with its wings with uncommon velocity, and a universal joy was perceivable in all its movements. The peaceable swallow, like the passive Quaker, meekly sat at a small distance, and never offered the least opposition. But no sooner was the plunder carried away, than the injured bird went to work with unabated ardor, and in a few days the depredations were repaired.

A swallow's nest, built in the west corner of a window in England facing the north, was so much softened by the rain beating against it, that it was rendered unfit to support the superincumbent load of five pretty, full-grown swallows. During a storm, the nest fell into the lower corner of the window, leaving the young brood exposed to all the fury of the blast. To save the little creatures from an untimely death, the owner of the house benevolently caused a covering to be thrown over them, till the severity of the storm was past. No sooner had it subsided, than the sages of the colony assembled, fluttering round the window, and hovering over the temporary covering of the fallen nest. As soon as this careful anxiety was observed, the covering was removed, and the utmost joy evinced by the group, on finding the young ones alive and unhurt. After feeding them, the members of this assembled community arranged themselves into working order. Each division, taking its appropriate station, commenced instantly to work; and before nightfall, they had jointly completed an arched canopy over the young brood in the corner where they lay, and securely covered them against a succeeding blast. Calculating the time occupied by them in performing this piece of architecture, it appeared evident that the young must have perished from cold and hunger before any single pair could have executed half the job.

THE SKYLARK.

A gentleman was travelling on horseback, a short time since, in Norfolk, England, when a lark dropped on the pommel of his saddle, and, spreading its wings in a submissive manner, cowered to him. He stopped his horse, and sat for some time in astonishment, looking at the bird, which he supposed to be wounded; but on endeavoring to take it, the lark crept round him, and placed itself behind: turning himself on the saddle, to observe it, the poor animal dropped between the legs of the horse, and remained immovable. It then struck him that the poor thing was pursued, and, as the last resource, hazarded its safety with him. The gentleman looked up, and discovered a hawk hovering directly over them; the poor bird again mounted the saddle, under the eye of its protector; and the disappointed hawk shifting his station, the little fugitive, watching his opportunity, darted over the hedge, and was hid in an instant.

THE TITMOUSE.

During the time of incubation, the natural timidity of birds is greatly lessened. The following instance, given by W. H. Hill, of Gloucester, England, illustrates this: "Some time since, a pair of blue titmice built their nest in the upper part of an old pump, fixing on the pin, on which the handle worked. It happened that, during the time of building the nest and laying the eggs, the pump had not been used: when again set going, the female was sitting, and it was naturally expected that the motion of the pump-handle would drive her away. The young brood were hatched safely, however, without any other misfortune than the loss of part of the tail of the sitting bird, which was rubbed off by the friction of the pump-handle; nor did they appear disturbed by the visitors who were frequently looking at them."

THE CANARY-BIRD.

Miscellaneous Anecdotes.--At a public exhibition of birds, some years ago, in London, a canary had been taught to act the part of a deserter, and flew away pursued by two others, who appeared to apprehend him. A lighted candle being presented to one of them, he fired a small cannon, and the little deserter fell on one side, as if killed by the shot. Another bird then appeared with a small wheelbarrow, for the purpose of carrying off the dead; but as soon as the barrow came near, the little deserter started to his feet.

"On observing," says Dr. Darwin, "a canary-bird at the house of a gentleman in Derbyshire, I was told it always fainted away when its cage was cleaned; and I desired to see the experiment. The cage being taken from the ceiling, and the bottom drawn out, the bird began to tremble, and turned quite white about the root of the bill; he then opened his mouth as if for breath, and respired quick; stood up straighter on his perch, hung his wing, spread his tail, closed his eyes, and appeared quite stiff for half an hour, till at length, with trembling and deep respirations, he came gradually to himself."

A few years since, a lady at Washington had a pair of canaries in a cage, one of which, the female, at last died. The survivor manifested the utmost grief; but upon a looking-glass being placed by his side, so that he could see his image, he took it for his departed friend, and seemed at once restored to happiness. The details of the story are given in the following lines:--

Poor Phil was once a blithe canary-- But then his mate was at his side; His spirits never seemed to vary, Till she, one autumn evening, died;-- And now upon his perch he clung, With ruffled plumes and spirits low, His carol hushed; or, if he sung, 'Twas some sad warble of his wo.