[CHAPTER III.]
CIVILIZED BIRDS.
In new parts of the country we do not find so many birds living near houses as we find in older towns. Where there is much wooded or uncultivated land for them to live and nest in, the birds prefer to stay at some distance from us. But after the fields are all ploughed, and the trees cut down, they become civilized and learn to love our gardens and barns and houses.
We speak of birds as "wild" or "civilized," just as we speak of the races of men. The birds in our yard are civilized. They will eat cooked food if we give it to them. They will bathe in a tub, if it is handy, as if it were a brook in the woods. They will nest in cosey nooks about the home in the vines and under the barn eaves, or in little houses which we build for them and set up on poles or in the arbors. They will follow the furrow which the plough makes, looking for worms, and will help themselves to our fruit without waiting for an invitation.
Many of them soon learn to prefer the barn-yard to the field, and will hop about with the chickens under the horse's feet. The sparrows and towhees come every day when the cow eats her pail of bran. They gather about close to her head and watch for her to finish her meal, very much as you have seen one dog watch another dog at his bone. When the cow is done, the birds take possession of her pail and pick out every crumb she has left.
The blackbird[1] is more civilized than most other birds. You are all acquainted with him, for we find him at home almost everywhere. Though he dresses differently in different parts of the country, he is always a blackbird. Where we live he has a white eye, like a tricky horse. He likes the company of sheep and cattle in our pastures and lanes.
[1] In the west, Brewer's blackbird, Scolecophagus cyanocephalus; in the east, purple grackle, Quiscalus quiscula.
We have seen these birds taking a free ride all over the fields, while the good-natured animals seemed to like it and did not try to shake them off. Once we laughed merrily when we saw a whole flock of blackbirds taking a ride "pig back," while the pigs rooted away in the ground, paying no attention to the birds on their backs.
Once when we were in Sitka, Alaska, a long way from home, we went out very early to watch the birds. We saw a great black raven on the back of a donkey that had been lying down all night on a bed of straw. The raven pecked the donkey's back and made him get up from his warm bed. Then the hungry bird made a breakfast of the insects that had crept under the donkey during the cold night to share his warmth. We were told that this raven was in the habit of getting his breakfast in this way.