Читать книгу Birds and all Nature, Vol. VII, No. 4, April 1900 - Various - Страница 5

NELLY HART WOODWORTH

A BROOKLYN naturalist who gives much time to bird-study told me that as his rooms became overfull of birds he decided to thin them out before the approach of winter. Accordingly he selected two song sparrows and turned one of them adrift, thinking to let the other go the next morning.

The little captive was very happy for a few hours, flying about the "wild garden" in the rear of the house – a few square rods where more than 400 varieties of native plants were growing. It was not long, however, before a homesick longing replaced the new happiness and the bird returned to the cage which was left upon the piazza roof.

The next morning the second sparrow was given his freedom. Nothing was seen of him for a week, when he came to the window, beat his tired wings against the pane, and sank down upon the window sill so overjoyed at finding himself at home that he was fairly bursting with song. His throat trembled with the ecstasy; the feathers ruffling as the melody rose from his heart and deluged the air with sweetness. His joy was too complete for further experiment.

The first sparrow was again released only to return at nightfall and go promptly to bed at the general retiring hour.

This hour, by the way, varied indefinitely; the whole aviary accommodating their hours to those of their master, rising with him and settling for the night as he turned off the gas. After this same bird was repeatedly sent out, like Noah's dove, coming home at evening, till after many days it came no more – an implicit confidence in the rightness of all intention doubtless making it an easy prey to some evil design.

A handsome hermit thrush from the same aviary, domesticated in my room, after an hour or two "abroad" is as homesick for his cage as is a child for its mother.

When this bird came into my possession his open and discourteous disapproval of women was humiliating. His attitude was not simply endurance but open revolt, a deep-rooted hatred for the entire sex. When, after long weeks of acquaintance, this hostility was overcome he followed me about the room, stood beside me at my work, and has since been unchanging in a pathetic devotion.

He plants his tiny feet in my pen-tray and throws the pens upon the floor. He stands on tiptoe before the mirror, staring with curious eyes at the strange rival till awe is replaced by anger and the brown wings beat in unavailing effort to reach the insolent mimic. When shown a worm he trembles in excited anticipation, his little feet dancing upon the floor, his wings moving rapidly, while he utters a coaxing, entreating syllable. The song is sweetest when raindrops fall or when the room is noisy and confused. I notice, too, that he is more tuneful before a rain.

I must confess that he keeps late hours, that he is often busy getting breakfast when orthodox birds should be dreaming, his active periods being liable to fall at any hour of the night, more especially if there be a moon. An intensely sentimental nature may be unable to sleep when the beauty of the world is so strongly emphasized.

His last frolic was with a frog the children smuggled into the house, chasing it around the room, darting at it with wide-open beak, advancing and retreating in a frenzied merriment.

As the cage door is often left open he is sometimes "lost" briefly. At one of these times I decided that he had gone to sleep under the bed and would be quite safe till morning. Before day-light my mother called to me from the next room that there was "something in her bed," and, sure enough, the truant stood upon her pillow, his wings almost brushing her face.

The song of an indigo bird, kept in my room, is often followed by from two to four subdued notes of exceeding richness and sweetness. Aside from the ordinary song, sometimes reduced to the syllables, "meet, meet, I'll meet you," words unheard save by aid of a vivid imagination, the bird has an exquisite warble, loud and exhilarating, as rounded and velvety as the bluebird's.

When the bird became familiar with the room, its occupants and the sunshine streaming in through the window, his happiness crystallized in song, a rarely beautiful strain unheard before. The feathers on his throat would ruffle as a wave of song ran upward filling the room with a delicious music.

Unlike the hermit thrush, which has silent, preoccupied hours and is given to meditation, the indigo has no indolent days and is a happy, sunny-hearted creature.

His attitudes are like the catbird's – erecting crest, flirting body and tail, or drooping the latter in the precise manner of the catbird. Judged by indigo dress-standards, this bird is in an undress uniform, quite as undress as it is uniform; as somebody says, a result of the late moult.

For all this his changeable suit is not only becoming, but decidedly modern – warp of blue and woof of green that change with changing light from indigo to intense emerald. Then there are browns and drabs in striking contrasts – colors worn by indigoes while young and inexperienced, the confused shades of the upper breast replaced by sparrowy stripes beneath.

My bird is a night singer, pouring out his tuneful plaint as freely in the "wee, sma' hours," as when the sun is shining; its notes as sweet as if he knew that if we must sing a night song it should be sweet that some heart may hear and be the better for our singing. Later in the day a purple finch in the cedar tangle challenged the vocalist in notes so entrancing that one's breath was hushed involuntarily.

The same finch sang freely during the entire season in notes replete with personality, a distinct translation of the heart language. Others might sing and sing, but this superb voice rose easily above them all, a warbling, gurgling, effervescing strain, finished and polished in notes of infinite tenderness. Short conversations preceded and followed the musical ecstasy, a love song intended for one ear only, while wings twinkled and fluttered in rhythm with the pulsing heart of the melodist. No doubt he was telling of a future castle in the air beside which castles in Spain are of little value.