I do not believe that there is any overpowering desire on the part of the American public to possess these fragile foreigners. However, the bird-dealer must live, and when passers-by see the pale blue, ruby, lavender, or orange-colored little beauties in the windows, they buy them and kindly and ignorantly set about keeping them. Of course, the birds in most cases die, but the Negro goes on getting his rum, the captain gets his money, and the dealer makes a living.
I believe the average person would rather have a canary than a finch. The canary is used to this climate and the finch is not. Why not have all this traffic in caged birds supervised by humane societies? I do not wish to reflect upon the character of all bird-dealers. Many of them are honest men, and some of them I know really love their birds. There are, however, many dealers who are in the business solely to make money, and as long as they are permitted to do as they please, birds will suffer.
Humane societies are not money-making concerns. The members usually consist of the most altruistic citizens of any place. They wish to do what is for the good of their village, town, or city. It would certainly be better for the birds and better for the public to have them regulate this traffic.
I had only two pairs of foreign finches. I would buy no more when I learned how they were captured. The first were cutthroats, and dear little birds they were, so devoted to each other and so surprised to find that the bird world was not full of good little creatures like themselves. When other birds boxed their ears they would fly to each other, rub each other’s heads, and murmur consolation.
They were fawn-colored birds, delicately mottled on the breast, with dark-brown spots. The male only had the red stripe across the throat, that gives him his dreadful name. They were very tame, and often while I stood close to them the male, as if struck by a sudden thought, would jump up, dance up and down on his tiny feet, turning his body from side to side as he did so, and sing a hoarse little song. The song and dance were so comical that I frequently burst out laughing, but his feelings never seemed hurt, and he soon broke out again.
In the intervals between his dancing he would press close to his diminutive mate—she was much smaller than a canary—and carried on his favorite occupation of gently rubbing her head with his beak. Once, when she was struck by a large bird, I saw her fly right to him, and it was very pretty to observe the intensely affectionate, sympathetic way in which he went all over her head with his tiny beak, as if to say, “Which is the sore place?—let me rub it for you.”
They were so devoted to each other that they invariably kept together when flying from one part of the aviary to the other, so that one day I was surprised to see them separated. I looked about and found that they had made a nest over some hot-water pipes. These little birds are very prolific, and hatch young ones freely in captivity. A lady is reported to have had from one pair in three years, as many as forty-five broods—altogether over two hundred and forty eggs, from which one hundred and seventy-six were hatched. I hoped very much that I might have some tiny cutthroats, but the nest was in too warm a place, and the eggs did not amount to anything.
A new bird, on going into an aviary, usually chooses a pet place for sleeping and resting, and keeps to it. The little cutthroats chose their place in some fir trees near the doves. The doves pushed them about a little, but the cutthroats soon learned to avoid them.
The only birds that conquered the doves were the Java sparrows. These sparrows are nice little birds, but I never had a high opinion of their intelligence, until I saw how they dominated these same stubborn doves.
They never bothered the doves in summer, but every winter the Javas persisted in sleeping between them on cold nights. On going into the aviary after dark, I would see one Java tucked between the doves, and another on the outside of one of them.