These schoolboys were the best boys that I ever saw to birds. Two hundred of them went daily to and fro in the finely wooded school-grounds, thirty-five acres in extent, and every one seemed to be mindful of the head master’s strict injunction that no one should kill any birds but a bluejay.
All the song-birds were fearless, and rewarded the boys by constant and exquisite music. The hummingbirds were the boys’ chief favorites, and early one morning when they found a number of their pets chilled and benumbed on the ground they took them up, administered sugar and water, and when the little creatures had become quite warm, and the genial Californian sun was well up in the sky, they gave them their liberty, and rejoiced to see these brilliant jewels of the air darting thankfully away.
My next experience with a hummingbird was in Canada. During our pleasant summer weather we always had, if in the city, window-boxes full of nasturtiums, and to these boxes several hummingbirds came daily. Whenever we heard the rapid vibration of our brilliant-winged visitors conversation was hushed in the rooms inside.
One summer evening a man brought me a young hummingbird, and said that his cat had caught it, but fortunately he had been able to rescue it before any harm had been done. The little bird was cold and feeble, and taking him in my hand I put his head against my face. After the manner of young hummingbirds with their parents, before they leave the nest, he put his tiny bill into my mouth and thrust out an extremely long and microscopic tongue in search of food.
He soon discovered that he was not with his parents. I had neither honey nor insects for him. However, I did the next best thing, and sent to a druggist for the purest honey that he had. In the meantime, I put my tiny visitor on the window-boxes. The old hummingbirds must have taken all the honey, for he seemed to find nothing there to satisfy him until I put some of that the druggist sent into the blossoms. I held them to his bill and he drank greedily, then, after looking around the room, he flew up to a picture frame, put his head under his wing, and went to sleep.
The next morning at daylight I looked up at the picture. The hummingbird woke up, said “Peep, peep!” a great number of times, in a thin, sweet voice, no louder than a cricket’s chirp, but did not come down.
I got up, filled a nasturtium with honey, pinned it to a stick, and held it up to my little visitor, who was charmed to have his breakfast in bed. Finally he condescended to come down, visited other flowers and had more drinks, then I opened the window and told him he was too lovely and too exquisite an occupant for an aviary, and he had better seek his brilliant brothers of the outer air.
He went like a flash of sunshine, and I have never regretted releasing him, for I would rather have had an eagle die on my hands than this tiny, painted beauty. Hummingbirds have been kept in captivity when great care has been exercised in providing for them. A conservatory or hothouse is a good place for them, for there they get the sun’s rays which are absolutely essential to their well-being, and they also find on the plants the nearest approach to their natural food.
The objection to this method of keeping these fragile birds is that their delicate frames are quickly injured by coming into contact with hard substances during their rapid flight. The better way is to enclose them inside a mosquito netting stretched on a frame. The best way of all is never to confine them—to give them entire liberty, for of all birds the hummingbird is the least suitable for a life of languishing captivity.
Purple finches have been very favorite pets of mine. Those that I have had have been quiet and amiable, and among the most good-natured and obliging of my birds. The first time I heard them sing I was enraptured. Their song was so sweet, so modest, so melodious. One finch I possessed amused me greatly. He fell into a kind of slavery to a siskin, who followed him and worried him until he at last consented to help her make a nest, in which there were some fine young ones that might have turned out promising hybrids if some wicked, larger bird had not one day killed the neat, determined little mother. I found her headless body beside her nest. She had died in defense of her home. One of the gallinules had probably come along and killed her when she refused to leave her nest.