The stranger, after gazing about him with the cool philosophical stare that seems to be peculiar to gallinules, walked up to a little looking-glass, and pecked at his reflection there. As it did not reciprocate, he kicked at it scornfully. Then he looked about to see what there was to eat. After satisfying his appetite he had a bath.
The next day I found him stuffing himself with bread and milk that was very warm, almost hot. I was struck by it, for most birds like their food lukewarm or cold.
Though still undemonstrative, he soon attached himself to my gallinule, and they usually kept together, though their friendship was of the coolest, calmest kind. Nothing ever disturbed the equanimity of those gallinules but the firing of the twelve o’clock gun from the citadel in the middle of the city. In all colonial towns around the world that possess an English garrison this noontide gun or cannon is fired.
The first gallinule always jumped and gave a loud squawk when it went off. The other one did not mind it so much.
CHAPTER XI
GOOD-BYE TO THE GALLINULES
Not long after the entrance of this new gallinule into my bird world, circumstantial evidence convicted him of a crime that seemed to me particularly atrocious and unnecessary.
I had bought two little birds—a linnet and a goldfinch. These birds came with large numbers of other birds from Europe to New York, which is the great market for foreign birds.
They were both so restless in the cage in which I put them for quarantine purposes, that I was convinced they were trapped birds. This suspicion was confirmed by finding some of the linnet’s feathers stuck together with bird lime. Indeed, he was in such a state that I did not see how he had maintained enough freedom of movement to get about the large cage in which I had put him. I cut off the sticky feathers, felt angry with his trappers for catching him, for the little wild creature beat himself against his bars all the time, and I let him loose in the aviary. He flew about the basement, ascended to the roof-veranda, made friends with one of my native linnets—so-called, which are really finches, and finally I gave him his freedom. He flew away with the finch, and I hope migrated with him.
This European linnet was a quiet-looking, dark bird. The goldfinch was utterly different, both in appearance and in disposition, and was also totally unlike our pretty, bright American goldfinch. The English bird was about five inches long, his whitish beak was conical and sharp, his feet were brown and slender, the front of his head was bright scarlet, the top of it black. His cheeks and upper neck were pure white, the sides of his breast light brown, the middle whitish gray, his wing feathers were velvety black, yellow, and white. In Europe he and his fellows are of great service to farmers, their sharp little beaks dragging many insects from their hiding-places. One of their chief articles of diet is thistle-seed, and they are trapped by means of bird lime placed near bunches of thistles.