Almost all captive song-birds I have seen, excepting canaries, are sure to flutter more or less when any one approaches their cage, and this instinctive effort to escape shows timidity and unhappiness. I confess I could never find any pleasure in keeping a tiny captive which I knew was breaking its little heart in fruitless longings for fresh air and liberty.
To show what thoughtful kindness will do in creating happy confidence, I should like to relate the history of my tame doves, Peace and Patience.
These birds used to belong to a poor woman in our village; her only means of housing them was in a wooden box with a wire front. It was a wonder that they continued to live in such discomfort; yet, without a bath, a nest-box, or anything to make their lives pleasant or healthy, they showed the grace of patient endurance by living on with merely their bare allowance of food and water.
However, they were redeemed at last from their hard bondage, placed in a large wicker cage with plenty of suitable provender, enabled to sun themselves in a pleasant verandah, and to take a bath in pure water whenever they felt inclined. Their plumage soon began to improve, and became as smooth and soft as grey satin. After a time they were let out to fly about in the dining-room, and the male bird, Peace, might often be seen sitting on the marble clock, gazing at himself in the looking-glass over the mantelpiece. I suppose he admired his own reflection, for he would go again and again to bow and curtsey and coo most lovingly to the bird he saw in the glass, and never seemed to find out it was all the while himself.
In spite of this foppishness he was a most devoted mate, paying all kinds of tender attentions to his gentle little wife, following her about and often feeding her with any special dainty he might come across.
Under these new and happy circumstances Peace and Patience began to think of rearing a family, and we found them searching everywhere for materials wherewith to build their nest. Not finding much that was suitable in my sitting-rooms, they went to the flower-vases and began pulling out the orchids and maiden-hair fern to line their nest.
It looked very pretty to see the little grey bird flying across the room with a great pink flower in her beak; but we thought a more suitable substance might be offered to them, and very gladly they welcomed some little twigs and dried grass, with which, after much cooing and confabulation, they constructed the family home. In a day or two a pair of snow-white eggs appeared, and then for a fortnight the little hen-bird sat patiently brooding over them, scarcely leaving them long enough to take her necessary food.
In due time we found two little doves were hatched. Small, pink, feeble-looking creatures they were; it seemed quite wonderful to think that they could ever grow up to be like their parents.
Patience was so tame that she would let me peep under her soft feathers to see how the tiny birds were progressing, and even if I took one of her children away to show to my friends she was in no way perturbed.
It is a great surprise to see doves feeding their young ones. They take the tender little beak within their own and then pass the soft food, with which nature provides them at that time, from their own crop into the beak of the fledglings. The young birds seemed to have excellent appetites and grew rapidly, developing tiny quill-feathers all over their bodies, and in a few weeks they were clothed with soft grey plumage, so that we could hardly tell parents from children.