I thought this was quite natural, as Andy wished to make another nest, so I turned the young one into the aviary. He did not forget his father. Oh no, he remembered him only too well, and whether prompted by feelings of revenge or not, I cannot tell, but for years when he could elude me he would follow his father’s cage and fight with him through the bars until he had plucked out all the short feathers about Andy’s beak, and made the place raw and bleeding.
Of course I stopped this by keeping the cage out of his way, and I did not dare to let Andy loose in the aviary until about a year ago. Then I thought I would try the experiment. Andy had two dangers ahead of him. He was an old bird—he was old when I got him, and I had had him several years—and his son would certainly seek his life. However, I let him and his mate out on the roof-veranda. They got on beautifully, this pair of elderly birds. There was no affection for the cage in their tiny breasts. They forsook it, moped if I put them back in it, built nests as high up as birds that had never been in a cage, fought the son and came out even—a little exercise is good for a bird. I believe more caged winged creatures die from monotony than anything else—and they are to-day living happily in the aviary with big and little birds.
It is wonderful how aviary life preserves birds. Last summer there was a number of very fine English birds for sale in a store, and I watched one among them with interest for weeks. All his companions were sold, and he was left.
One day I said to the bird-dealer, “Give him to me to take home. He wants special attention and food.”
“Take him,” he said, “he is dying with asthma.”
I took the bird home, named him the Britisher, and let him loose on the veranda, found he was frightened to death and could not fly, and put him in a large cage. For weeks he had egg-food, bread and milk, crushed hemp, plenty of green stuff, all kinds of seeds, in fact anything he wanted to eat. Then I once more opened his cage door. He sat about for a few days, then sallied forth, learned to fly, and stole a mate from another canary, one of my swift-flying, aviary-hatched birds; then with fearful recklessness he chose the most dangerous corner of the veranda for a nest, close to the spot my Brazil cardinals considered sacred to themselves. I don’t know why they did not drive him away, or kill him. For days he sat complacently near them, guarding himself from the attacks of the swift flyer, whose mate he had stolen.
I put some food and water on a shelf near him, for if he descended on the floor he was at a disadvantage. Finally, I found him with a badly bitten leg, and put him back in his cage. His little mate followed him in, and stayed with him until he was able to go out again. He descended into the aviary with the other birds when the cold weather came, and it used to delight me to see the big, handsome, delicate creature sitting breathing spasmodically, but enjoying himself, watching his little mate.
He did not succumb till a week or two ago. When the maid wrote me that “a big yellow bird had died, and was bearried in the garden, it being a very hard thing to bearry it,” I knew I had lost my bird of short, brief friendship—my pet Britisher.
Two of Andy’s grandchildren, little beauties called Cowlie and Tippet, did a pretty thing last summer that seemed intentional. As the veranda is large, members of the family often sit out among the birds, and this pleases the tamest ones very much. They come sociably about us, perch on our laps or shoulders, peck at our work-baskets and try to run away with threads that we snatch from them. A favorite trick to play on the birds is to let them seize the end of the thread on a spool. Thinking they have a prize they fly away but soon find that their prize is endless and give it up in disgust.
Cowlie one evening, had been hanging about my sister who was reading in the sunset. He was singing his prettiest good-night song, and he was so persistent about it that at last she dropped her book and began to praise him.