At our next visit we found Dame Chickadee setting and Boy Chickadee feeding her; again, and the post had become a nursery. It seemed too ludicrous that such babes-in-the-woods should ever attain to the dignity of fatherhood and motherhood; but this time neither parent was there to be laughed at, and as I tapped at the door a perfectly intelligible “Day-day-day-day” came from the nursery; the babes had already learned to talk!
It was so long before we visited them again that we expected to find the post deserted. There was no sign of occupancy and I felt depressed because it was all over. But a gentle tap brought a tiny, angular cranium and a careworn baby face to the door. It didn’t seem possible that Boy Chickadee could have such a homely bairn! We withdrew in haste when he threatened to come out; but we had summoned him and the moment had come to seek his fortune. The youngster stepped into the door and set sail straight across the wide roadway. When we caught a rear view of the tiny sailboat our gravity was undone, for not a vestige of tail adorned it and he was the most unfinished fledgling we had ever seen.
This was the last sign of life the old fence-post yielded, but I cannot learn to believe it final. I am constantly expecting to see more Chickadees set sail, and its possibilities still haunt me.
Elizabeth Nunemacher.
THE STORY BIRD.
The parrot has been called the “bird-man” on account of its intelligence; but so many anecdotes are told of it that it might well be styled the Story-bird.
Of the four hundred and thirty different species known, America claims one hundred and twenty-six. Europe is the only large country that does not possess native tribes of parrots.
The parrot is the monkey of the feathered world, because of his imitative powers. He also uses one of his feet as a hand to carry what he eats to his beak.
A parrot possessed of remarkable linguistic powers, being able to speak in Spanish, Portuguese, French, German and English, was accustomed whenever a visitor was at all boisterous to imitate his laugh and then groan in anguish, exclaiming in tones of commiseration, “Poor, poor Polly!”
A cardinal is said to have paid a hundred crowns for a parrot that could recite without a blunder the Apostles’ creed and chant the Magnificat correctly.