My pets

by Marshall Saunders

My grosbeak was a greenish-gray bird, with a stout beak and intelligent eyes. More than any bird I had ever had, did her expression remind me of that on the face of a human being. I scarcely looked at her without thinking of a friend—a handsome woman with a well-developed nose. I never had a gentler, kinder bird, nor one that became tame in so short a time. She loved human society, and would follow any of the family about, perching on our heads or shoulders and taking seeds from our lips. Indeed, she soon became so tame that she would take food from the hands of utter strangers.

One pretty trick she had was to go sailing on the blocks of wood that I put in the big water dishes for the little birds to light on. The grosbeak took the greatest delight in perching on these blocks and floating from one side of a dish to the other.

I knew that the mockingbird did not like her, but she was so large—about eight inches long, and had such a stout beak that I knew he could not hurt her, and I hoped she would get over her dread of him. She did not. He frightened her, and made her feel so timid in the basement that she took to sleeping in the elevator. Then she began to come up on the veranda, and if the gate leading to it were closed she would stand beside it and tap on the wire till I let her in.

At last I took her upstairs, and there she had a happy winter, though she never seemed very strong. One day I was amused to see her sitting beside my sister, who was cracking sunflower seeds for her—the grosbeak being either too lazy or too miserable that day to do it for herself. My sister would open the seed and give the grosbeak the contents. The grosbeak watched her intently, and if ever so small a piece fell on the floor she would fly down and pick it up.

As a family, the grosbeaks are very trustful birds, and are said to stare at a hunter approaching them with a gun, and will continue to stare, even after he has shot down one or more. They are extremely affectionate with each other, and one grosbeak has been known to follow its mate into captivity.

However, they are not foolish birds, judging from the one I had. She was sweet and trusting, but also intelligent. When the early summer came she died, to the very great regret of the whole family, and I always blamed Dan for undermining her constitution by his bullying.

I had, however, become foolishly fond of this bird, and could not bear to part with him, and kept him in my aviary until this autumn, when I made up my mind that he was really too bad to be left at home without my supervision.

I sent him to an aviary where he would have more room than with me, and would be with larger birds. When the first reports came from him, one of the family remarked that handsome Dan always fell on his feet. He was getting special care and attention, but—and I could not help smiling—one bird had singled him out for persecution, as he had so often singled out weaker ones for persecution in his day. Dan’s enemy was an English blackbird, who was pursuing him so relentlessly that one of her flight feathers had to be pulled out so that she could not catch up to him. I hope this affliction may make him a better bird, and may cause him to reflect that there is a great law of retribution in the bird as well as in the human world.

To return to the robins—Bob went on with her nestmaking, and soon I had another robin brought to me who grew up to look so much like her that she was a veritable Bob the Third. This baby robin was about the best one I ever brought up. It was the same old story—fallen from the nest, no parents near, and cats abounding, so I adopted the little Bobbie, carried her about on my finger, and as the house was full of company took her every night in one hand, and her dish of worms in the other, downstairs in my father’s study to sleep on a big sofa bed.

The walls were lined with books, and pulling out one from its fellows I would put Bobbie on it. There she sat all night, but when daylight came she began to chirp politely and remind me that a hungry robin was near. This bird was never one bit of trouble. At one time I left her to go to the country to buy a farm. She took her food from my sister, and later on, when I moved all my birds to the farmhouse, she settled down in her rooms there, as if she had always been accustomed to them.