Birds of Song and Story

by Elizabeth Grinnell; Joseph Grinnell

There being no other baby to crowd, he kept to the nest longer than birds commonly do, and when at last he got on his feet he was pretty well fledged.

Now, when he had obtained his first youthful suit of clothes, his mother looked surprised, as did also his father, it is to be supposed, he in his solitary cage hanging close to the other. Both parent birds were pure-bred Teneriffe canaries, the male as green as emerald and the female more dusky and lighter. By a strange freak of nature, which happens sometimes by breeding these birds in captivity, the young fellow was bright yellow, of the tint of a ripe lemon, beak white, and eye black, while his feet and ankles retained their original baby pinkness. Oh, he was a pretty bird! But it was foreordained in his case, as in similar cases, that he should not be so sweet a singer as though his color had been like that of his parents. He was not conscious of this fact, however, and it mattered not to him that he was yellow instead of green. Nor did he care in the least that the price of him was marked down to a dollar and a half when it should have been double. Away he went in a new cage, after his new mistress had paid the sum named into the hand of his former owner. He peeked out of the bars as he was carried along swinging at every step; that is, he peeped out as well as he could, considering that a cloth was covered over the cage. The wind blew the cloth aside now and then and Dicky saw wonderful sights—sights that were familiar and "so soul-appealing." Not that he, in his own short life, had ever seen such sights, but that somehow in his little being were vague memories or conceptions of what his ancestors had seen. It is hard to explain it, but everything cannot be explained. When we come to one of these things we call it "instinct," with a wise shake of our heads, just as we were told to say "Jerusalem" when we came to a word we couldn't pronounce when we were very young and read in the Second Reader.

Well, Dicky had a good home of his own, and lived for a purpose, although he never developed into a trained singer. In the heart of him he longed for a mate, and often expressed his desires in low, musical notes. But no mate came to him, and he would sit for hours pondering on his bachelor's lot, and singing more notes.

Now, wild birds are constantly having something "happen" to them. They fly against a wire or get a wing hurt, or the young fall out of the nest and can't find their mother. Dicky's mistress was always on the lookout for such accidents, and she brought such birds into the house and nursed them and brought them back to health when possible. It occurred to her to offer a "calling" or "vocation" to Dicky. So she made a small private hospital of his cage, into which she placed the victims of accident or sickness as she found them. Dicky was surprised, never having seen a bird save his parents, and his lady-love in his dreams, and at first he stood on tiptoe and was frightened.

But he learned to be kind after a while, and to show his visitors where the food and water were kept, and to snuggle up to them on the perch when it came bedtime. Many and many a poor invalid did he aid in restoring to freedom and flight, until he became pretty well acquainted with the birds that nest in our grounds.

Year after year the good work went on, and Dicky developed more musical talent, until he sang sweetly, imitating the finches and linnets outside. In the fall of the year, when the wild birds were thinking of their annual migrations, Dicky himself grew restless and quit his songs. Then his mistress opened his door and told him he might "go." Not far away, of course, but all about in the room, that seemed to this caged bird as big as any world could be. In his quest for new nooks he came by accident upon the mirror above the fireplace. Standing on the edge of a little vase before the glass, just in front of the beveled edge of it, he espied two yellow birds, one in the glass itself and another in the beveled edge, as a strict law of science had determined should be the case.

In a second the whole bearing of the bird was changed. His feathers lay close, his legs stood long and slim, and his eyes bulged, as they never had bulged since the lids parted when he was two weeks old. Then he found voice. He sang as never a green bird sang sweeter. He turned his head and the two birds in the glass turned their heads. He preened his wing and the two birds preened each a wing. His little throat swelled out in melody, the tip of his beak pointing straight to the ceiling of the big room as if it were indeed the blue sky, and the two birds sang with uplifted beaks and swelling throats. They were of his own kind, his own race, his own ancestral comrades. And they were not green! The low mesas of the Canary Islands never resounded to such melody.

But melody was not food, at least so thought Dicky's mistress, as she tempted the bird in vain to eat. Not a crumb would he touch until placed back in his cage, where he straightway forgot his recent discoveries. As usual, he took his bread and cooky to the water-dish and set it to soak for dinner, and scattered his seeds about the cage floor in his eagerness to dispose of the non-essentials, the hemp only being, in his opinion, suitable for his needs. Of course he was obliged to pick up his crumbs after he had thus assorted the varieties.

Every day when the door was open he flew straight to the mirror. If we moved the vase to the middle, away from the beveled edge, he found the place by himself and stood on tiptoe exactly where the reflection accorded him the companionship of two birds, and he would resume his melody. It was real to him, this comradeship, and it lasted until actual and personally responsible companions were provided for him.

Now, let not the reader conjure up a picture of many birds in a cage with Dicky as governor or presiding elder. It was midsummer, when the sands are hot and inviting to the retiring and modest family known by name as "lizards." The particular branch of this family to which we refer, and to which Dicky was referred, is known to scientists, who would be precise of expression, as Gerrhonotus. But the familiar name of "lizard" is sufficient for the creatures we placed in a large wire cage on the upper balcony and designed for Dicky's summer companions.