Had Bob refused to feed it because it was diseased? I fancied he had, for I usually find that birds know a good deal more about each other than I know about them.
Bob certainly knew a good deal more about himself than I did, for he soon gave me another surprise. The basement aviary was just under my study and my father’s. Above the studies was a roof-veranda, and beyond the veranda was a sun-room. The veranda and sun-room were wired in so that the birds could not get out, but as there was no access to them through the studies, a narrow well or elevator, as we called it, had been built at the back of the house.
The birds went up and down this elevator like flashes of color, and seemed to enjoy the fun. Some of them preferred to sleep above, some below.
Among those that liked the roof-veranda was my long-legged gallinule. I had built him a nice broad nest in a sheltered place, and one summer night, to my amazement, I saw Bob hanging about him and giving him such plain hints to vacate the nest that at last the gallinule, being a gentlemanly bird, stepped off it and allowed Bob to step on.
I could not imagine why Bob was doing this curious thing. He had never made a nest nor slept in a nest, and had always perched on a branch. However, I made a practice of not interfering with my birds any more than I could help and, promising the gallinule a new nest on the morrow, I left them.
The next morning Bob stepped off the nest with such an air of importance that I hurriedly approached and looked in it. There lay a fine big robin’s egg, and convulsed with laughter, I ran to proclaim the news to the family, “Old Bob the Second is not a male robin; he is a female.”
Everybody came and stared, and Bob was the center of attraction for some time to come. She laid two other eggs and sat on them, and they amounted to nothing, whereupon she deserted the gallinule’s nest and built one for herself. She sat on this one about three weeks, then deserted it and the three blue eggs and built another. This too was unprofitable, and she built another nest, and another, and another, until late autumn put an end to her nestmaking.
During that and successive summers I got to dread the time of nestmaking. I used to think I gave her plenty of mud, but there was rarely enough. She built a large, strong nest on some flat foundation, or in the forked branches of the firs and spruces I had standing about the aviary and roof veranda. When the mud gave out she mixed porridge with earth and soaked strips of paper in the water dishes. She kept things in a great mess, flinging sods of earth about, also sticks, straws, and feathers. While building the foundation she was always very dirty. After every beakful of soft substance was stuck round the framework, she would settle down in the middle of it, press her breast hard against the edge, and wheel round and round to keep the shape.
The most of her nests were built in the basement, and it was very amusing to see her hurry up the elevator to the roof-veranda, dart about there, and stuff her bill full of straws and grass, then start downward with a train of nest-material floating behind her. The soft, flexible grass was for the lining of the nest—the receptacle for her three precious blue eggs.
I used to pity Bob in her solitary nestmaking, and sometimes she gazed wistfully at the Virginian and Brazil cardinals and acted as if she wished they would both help her. They both disliked her, and having mates of their own, chased her away every time she went near them.