I was more fortunate with my next parrakeets that are well and happy at this present time. The first one arrived one cold November afternoon. A lad brought him to me in a box, and said a young man in the north end of the city had sent it to me. Would I please cure it? It was very sick. I opened a box and found a brilliant green African love-bird with a bright red face. Its body was cold, its head and neck were flabby, its claws were curled tightly, its heart was beating very feebly, and it was evidently dying.
I seated myself by the fire, and called for my sister, who was almost as much interested in my birds as I was. In a trice she had a cup of hot water at my elbow, and I dropped a little in the bird’s beak. Then she got a hot water bag and I laid the bird on it, face downward, keeping its back to the fire, then I uncurled the little claws that were clenched, for they kept the body from the contact of the bag. At this, the bird showed his first signs of animation, and opening his eyes he feebly tried to bite me. Very much pleased at this sign of life I gave him some warm sweet oil, and after a time a few drops of milk.
His heart action had improved, and soon he straightened himself out and perched on my finger. I then took him up to Sukey’s room, thinking that the voices of the few birds I had there might rouse him. They did, and leaving my hand he climbed on a tree, but instead of seeking food he put his head under his wing. I knew this would not do, so I brought him down by the fire again, and offered him a dish of seeds—flax, domestic and French millet, canary, and hemp.
He tried to eat but he was too weak. The seeds fell out of his beak. I offered him apple, and he tried to scrape off some of that, but could not. I masticated some, and he began weakly to nibble at it. When he finished, I again put the seeds before him. He chose the millet; I suppose he liked the soft shell and oily taste. He ate slowly but steadily, but he was still so weak that he would only open his eyes to pick up a seed, and would close them as he ate it.
I still sat by the fire, as he liked the heat, and held him on my finger. To my delight he so far improved that he at last seized a good-sized piece of apple and ate it. I put him in a cage at last, as I got quite stiff from sitting so long in one position, and the love-bird was far enough on the road to recovery to be able to climb unsteadily to a perch, where he sat meditatively, and at last opened his eyes and began to make his toilet for the night.
A bird that is too weak to clean his beak is a pretty sick bird. Red-face now began to pay a little attention to his dirty one, and stroked it gently against the bars of the cage to clean it. Then he began to play with his feathers and cunning little claws.
“He will live,” I said triumphantly, and I watched him as he ate at intervals till ten o’clock in the evening. Then I put his cage on the hot water pipes in my study. I had some canaries in there, and seeing them, he spread his wings and started warbling. He looked such an exquisite little creature that, as soon as he was tucked away for the night, I went to my natural history to find out something more about him. This red-headed love-bird seems to be the best known of the parrakeet tribe after the Australian or grass parrakeets, such as Big Eyes and Little Eyes. I learned that they, when excited, spread out their short green tails, tipped by spots of orange and black. Subsequently I saw my own birds doing this—opening and shutting their short tails just like brilliant fans.
They are only six inches long and inhabit forests in the central parts of Africa. There they fly in large flocks, and often sit closely together in long rows, where their gorgeous little green bodies and red faces must produce a very striking appearance. They are said to be the most hardy of the parrakeet family and will stand a good degree of cold weather. They are no bathers, but they take great pride in arranging their feathers, and in pluming and in stroking one another.
Later on, I noticed that this parrakeet did occasionally step into the water and make a pretense of bathing, but what he liked better was to stand near some bird that was taking a vigorous bath and catch the drops as they flew out of the basin. In such cases he would get quite excited and would dip backward and forward as if he too were really in the water.
I was very much afraid that my little Red-face would die, and the next morning hurried downstairs so early that I had to strike a match to see whether he was dead or alive. When he heard me he took his rosy head from under his wing and fell to eating. He got on so well during the day that toward night I took him up to Sukey’s room so that he might have the little birds there to cheer him up.