THE STORY OF LITTLE BILLEE.
CAROLINE CROWNINSHIELD BASCOM.
IN THE March number of the Cosmopolitan of 1894, I read a most interesting article about a tame humming-bird. I know a number of people who enjoyed it as much as I, so I feel sure all lovers of pets, especially of birds, will be interested in my story of "Little Billee." I have always been passionately fond of animals and would like to make pets of them all. I have cared the least for birds, (except out of doors) and have known very little about them.
I have been ill many months, and my family and friends have done all they could to make the days pass as quickly as possible for me. Early in June my mother found a little brown bird which could not have been more than two weeks old. Thinking it might amuse me she brought him up stairs done up in her handkerchief, and I took him inside the bed. After an hour he seemed very happy and not at all afraid. I looked him over carefully, but found him uninjured. I took him to the open window expecting to see him try to fly away, but he did not seem to have the slightest intention of doing so. From that day to this he has been perfectly devoted to me and my constant companion. At this minute he is sitting on the back of my neck dressing his feathers.
The first day I could not get him to eat anything until night, when he drank milk from an after-dinner coffee spoon. After that he took little pieces of bread soaked in milk from my tongue or lip. I fed him in that way for several days, then he would take it out of my fingers. He lived on bread and milk for two weeks. Now he eats almost everything that I do. All kinds of vegetables, mushrooms, and ice cream. He likes to sit on my hand or shoulder and take them from my fork.
I have some kind of nourishment every two hours and Little Billee knows very well when my maid comes into my room with a salver that there is something on it to eat or drink, and he is wild until he gets on my hand or shoulder. He drinks milk from my tumblers and will not drink water out of anything but my medicine glass. When Little Billee sees me sit down in the morning with an orange on a plate, he flies upon his cage, then over into my lap, and sits on the first finger of my left hand and eats the orange from my spoon. At first he could not crack his own seeds and as he was very fond of them I used to do it for him. Now he can crack them himself, but he prefers eating them outside his cage, and his hemp seed he always brings over and eats on the rug in front of my bed.
Little Billee is very fond of little orange blossom biscuits. I keep some in a tin box under a table by the side of my bed. For several days every time I would reach out of bed and tap on the box Little Billee would come running for a piece. One day I was visiting with a friend and we forgot all about the bird. Soon we heard rap, tap, tap, pop, pop, pop, and there was Little Billee standing by the box waiting for a piece. Since then he comes many times a day. If I send him away with a small piece he returns directly for a large one.
I had quite a time teaching him to stay in his cage. The first day I put him in I was afraid he would die of fright. I left the cage on the floor for two days before he ventured in. After he had been going in and out for some time, I closed the door, but he was frightened quite as much as at first, and he would not go near the cage the rest of the day. Finally I tried taking the cage on my lap and shutting him in; he did not seem afraid then and now he does not mind being shut up in the morning when I am in my dressing-room, but he much prefers going in and out at his own sweet will. If I leave him shut up in his cage and go back to bed, he is frantic until he is let out and gets in the bed with me. For the first two weeks he was not happy if he was not on me somewhere. He would stay in bed with me for hours at a time, but now he plays on the floor, with a little piece of paper, cotton, or ribbon, and eats his seeds and biscuit.