Illustrative Anecdotes of the Animal Kingdom Part 17

This well-known bird is a general inhabitant of the United States, and a particular favorite wherever he takes up his abode. "I never met with more than one man," says Wilson, "who disliked the martins, and would not permit them to settle about his house. This was a penurious, close-fisted German, who hated them because, as he said, 'they ate his _peas_.' I told him he must certainly be mistaken, as I never knew an instance of martins eating _peas_; but he replied, with great coolness, that he had often seen them 'blaying round the hive, and going _schnip_, _schnap_,' by which I understood that it was his _bees_ that had been the sufferers; and the charge could not be denied."

THE SWALLOW.

In England, in one corner of the piazza of a house, a swallow had erected her nest, while a wren occupied a box which was purposely hung in the centre. They were both much domesticated. The wren became unsettled in its habits, and formed a design of dislodging the swallow; and having made an attack, actually succeeded in driving her away.

Impudence gets the better of modesty; and this exploit was no sooner performed, than the wren removed every part of the materials to her own box, with the most admirable dexterity. The signs of triumph appeared very visible; it fluttered with its wings with uncommon velocity, and a universal joy was perceivable in all its movements. The peaceable swallow, like the pa.s.sive Quaker, meekly sat at a small distance, and never offered the least opposition. But no sooner was the plunder carried away, than the injured bird went to work with unabated ardor, and in a few days the depredations were repaired.

A swallow's nest, built in the west corner of a window in England facing the north, was so much softened by the rain beating against it, that it was rendered unfit to support the superinc.u.mbent load of five pretty, full-grown swallows. During a storm, the nest fell into the lower corner of the window, leaving the young brood exposed to all the fury of the blast. To save the little creatures from an untimely death, the owner of the house benevolently caused a covering to be thrown over them, till the severity of the storm was past. No sooner had it subsided, than the sages of the colony a.s.sembled, fluttering round the window, and hovering over the temporary covering of the fallen nest. As soon as this careful anxiety was observed, the covering was removed, and the utmost joy evinced by the group, on finding the young ones alive and unhurt. After feeding them, the members of this a.s.sembled community arranged themselves into working order. Each division, taking its appropriate station, commenced instantly to work; and before nightfall, they had jointly completed an arched canopy over the young brood in the corner where they lay, and securely covered them against a succeeding blast. Calculating the time occupied by them in performing this piece of architecture, it appeared evident that the young must have perished from cold and hunger before any single pair could have executed half the job.

THE SKYLARK.

A gentleman was travelling on horseback, a short time since, in Norfolk, England, when a lark dropped on the pommel of his saddle, and, spreading its wings in a submissive manner, cowered to him. He stopped his horse, and sat for some time in astonishment, looking at the bird, which he supposed to be wounded; but on endeavoring to take it, the lark crept round him, and placed itself behind: turning himself on the saddle, to observe it, the poor animal dropped between the legs of the horse, and remained immovable. It then struck him that the poor thing was pursued, and, as the last resource, hazarded its safety with him.

The gentleman looked up, and discovered a hawk hovering directly over them; the poor bird again mounted the saddle, under the eye of its protector; and the disappointed hawk s.h.i.+fting his station, the little fugitive, watching his opportunity, darted over the hedge, and was hid in an instant.

THE t.i.tMOUSE.

During the time of incubation, the natural timidity of birds is greatly lessened. The following instance, given by W. H. Hill, of Gloucester, England, ill.u.s.trates this: "Some time since, a pair of blue t.i.tmice built their nest in the upper part of an old pump, fixing on the pin, on which the handle worked. It happened that, during the time of building the nest and laying the eggs, the pump had not been used: when again set going, the female was sitting, and it was naturally expected that the motion of the pump-handle would drive her away. The young brood were hatched safely, however, without any other misfortune than the loss of part of the tail of the sitting bird, which was rubbed off by the friction of the pump-handle; nor did they appear disturbed by the visitors who were frequently looking at them."

THE CANARY-BIRD.

_Miscellaneous Anecdotes._--At a public exhibition of birds, some years ago, in London, a canary had been taught to act the part of a deserter, and flew away pursued by two others, who appeared to apprehend him. A lighted candle being presented to one of them, he fired a small cannon, and the little deserter fell on one side, as if killed by the shot.

Another bird then appeared with a small wheelbarrow, for the purpose of carrying off the dead; but as soon as the barrow came near, the little deserter started to his feet.

"On observing," says Dr. Darwin, "a canary-bird at the house of a gentleman in Derbys.h.i.+re, I was told it always fainted away when its cage was cleaned; and I desired to see the experiment. The cage being taken from the ceiling, and the bottom drawn out, the bird began to tremble, and turned quite white about the root of the bill; he then opened his mouth as if for breath, and respired quick; stood up straighter on his perch, hung his wing, spread his tail, closed his eyes, and appeared quite stiff for half an hour, till at length, with trembling and deep respirations, he came gradually to himself."

A few years since, a lady at Was.h.i.+ngton had a pair of canaries in a cage, one of which, the female, at last died. The survivor manifested the utmost grief; but upon a looking-gla.s.s being placed by his side, so that he could see his image, he took it for his departed friend, and seemed at once restored to happiness. The details of the story are given in the following lines:--

Poor Phil was once a blithe canary-- But then his mate was at his side; His spirits never seemed to vary, Till she, one autumn evening, died;-- And now upon his perch he clung, With ruffled plumes and spirits low, His carol hushed; or, if he sung, 'Twas some sad warble of his wo.

His little mistress came with seed:-- Alas! he would not, could not, feed.

She filled his cup with crystal dew; She called--she whistled:--'twould not do; The little mourner bowed his head, And gently peeped--"My mate is dead!"

Alas, poor Phil! how changed art thou!

The gayest then, the saddest now.

The dribbled seed, the limpid wave, Would purchase, then, thy sweetest stave; Or, if thou hadst some softer spell, Thine ear had stolen from the sh.e.l.l That sings amid the silver sand That circles round thy native land, 'Twas only when, with wily art, Thou sought'st to charm thy partner's heart.

And she is gone--thy joys are dead-- Thy music with thy mate is fled!

Poor bird! upon the roost he sate, With drooping wing, disconsolate; And as his little mistress gazed, Her br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes with tears were glazed.

In vain she tried each wonted art To heal the mourner's broken heart.

At last she went, with childish thought, And to the cage a mirror brought.

She placed it by the songster's side-- And, lo! the image seemed his bride!

Forth from his perch he wondering flew, Approached, and gazed, and gazed anew; And then his wings he trembling shook, And then a circling flight he took; And then his notes began to rise, A song of triumph, to the skies!

And since--for many a day and year, That blissful bird--the mirror near-- With what he deems his little wife, His partner still--has spent his life: Content, if but the image stay, Sit by his side, and list his lay!

Thus fancy oft will bring relief, And with a shadow comfort grief.

THE BULFINCH.

A farmer in Scotland had a bulfinch which he taught to whistle some plaintive old Scottish airs. He reluctantly parted with the bird for a sum of money, which his narrow circ.u.mstances at the time compelled him to accept of; but inwardly resolved, if fortune should favor him, to buy it back, cost what it would. At the end of a year or so, a relation died, leaving him a considerable legacy. Away he went, the very day after he got intelligence of this pleasant event, and asked the person who had purchased the bulfinch, if he would sell it again, telling him to name his own price. The man would not hear of parting with the bird.

The farmer begged just to have a sight of it, and he would be satisfied. This was readily agreed to; so, as soon as he entered the room where the bulfinch was kept, he began to whistle one of the fine old tunes which he had formerly taught it. The bulfinch remained in a listening att.i.tude for a minute or two, then it grew restless, as if struggling with some dim recollection,--then it moved joyously to the side of the cage, and all at once it seemed to identify its old master, who had no sooner ceased, than it took up the tune, and warbled it with the tremulous pathos which marked the manner of its teacher. The effect was irresistible; the poor farmer burst into tears, and the matter ended by his receiving the bulfinch in a present: but report says, to his credit, that he insisted on making a present of money, in return.

THE SPARROW.

A few years since, a pair of sparrows, which had built in the thatch roof of a house at Poole, were observed to continue their visits to the nest long after the time when the young birds take flight. This unusual circ.u.mstance continued throughout the year; and in the winter, a gentleman who had all along observed them, determined on investigating the cause. He therefore mounted a ladder, and found one of the young ones detained a prisoner, by means of a piece of string, or worsted, which formed part of the nest, having become accidentally twisted round its leg. Being thus incapacitated from procuring its own sustenance, it had been fed by the continued exertions of its parents.

An old man belonging to the neighborhood of Glasgow, who was a soldier in his youth, mentions, that he became first reconciled to a foreign country, by observing a sparrow hopping about just as he had seen them do at home. "Are you here too, freen?" said he to the sparrow. He does not add that it returned a verbal answer to his exclamatory question; but he could not help fancying that it looked a.s.sent, as if it understood he was an exile, and wished him to take a lesson of resignation to circ.u.mstances.

THE CROW.

_Miscellaneous Anecdotes._--In the year 1816, a Scotch newspaper states that a common crow, perceiving a brood of young chickens, fourteen in number, under the care of a parent hen, picked up one of them; but a young lady, seeing what had happened, suddenly pulled up the window, and calling out loudly, the plunderer dropped his prey. In the course of the day, however, the audacious and calculating robber, accompanied by thirteen others, came to the place where the chickens were, and each seizing one, got clearly off with the whole brood at once.

An instance of sagacity in the crow is told by Dr. Darwin. He had a friend, on the northern coast of Ireland, who noticed above a hundred crows at once, feeding on mussels. The plan they took to break them was, each to lift one in its bill, and ascend about thirty or forty yards in the air, and from thence let the mussels drop upon stones; thus they secured the flesh of the animal inhabitants.

During the war between Augustus Caesar and Mark Antony, when the world looked with anxiety which way Fortune would turn herself, an indigent man in Rome, in order to be prepared to take advantage of whichever way she might incline, determined on making a bold hit for his own advancement; he had recourse, therefore, to the following ingenious expedient: He applied himself to the training of two crows with such diligence, that he taught them at length to p.r.o.nounce distinctly, the one a salutation to Caesar, and the other to Antony. When Augustus returned conqueror, the man went out to meet him, with one of the crows perched on his hand, which every little while exclaimed, _Salve, Caesar, Victor, Imperator!_ Augustus, greatly struck, and delighted with so novel a circ.u.mstance, purchased the bird of the man for a sum which immediately raised him to opulence.

There is a kind of crow, which is seen in England in flocks, called the _hooded_ crow. It is said that one or two hundred of them will sometimes meet together as if upon some fixed plan; and at these times, a few of them sit with drooping heads, and others look very grave, as if they were judges, while others still are very bustling and noisy. In about an hour, the meeting breaks up, when one or two are generally found dead; and it has been supposed that this meeting is a sort of trial of some crows who have behaved ill, and who are punished in this severe way for their bad behavior.

THE RAVEN.

_Miscellaneous Anecdotes._--This bird is very hardy, crafty, and wary.

He is easily domesticated, and is very mischievous, readily catching up any thing glittering, and hiding it. There is a well-authenticated fact of a gentleman's butler having missed a great many silver spoons, and other articles, without being able to detect the thief for some time; at last he observed a tame raven with one in his mouth, and watched him to his hiding-place, where he found more than a dozen.

A young raven, fifteen months old, was taken from the nest when very young, and brought up by a keeper with his dogs. It was so completely domesticated that it would go out with the keeper, and when it took its flight farther than usual, at the sound of the whistle it would return and perch upon a tree or a wall, and watch all his movements. It was no uncommon thing for it to go to the moors with him, and to return--a distance of ten or twelve miles. It would even enter a village with the keeper, partake of the same refreshment, and never leave him until he returned home.

A gentleman who resided near the New Forest, Hamps.h.i.+re, England, had a tame raven, which used frequently to hop about the verge of the forest, and chatter to every one it met. One day, a person travelling through the forest to Winchester, was much surprised at hearing the following exclamation: "Fair play, gentlemen! fair play! for G.o.d's sake, gentlemen, fair play!" The traveller, looking round to discover from whence the voice came, to his great astonishment, beheld no human being near. But hearing the cry of "fair play" again repeated, he thought it must proceed from some fellow-creature in distress. He immediately rushed into that part of the forest from whence the cries came, where, to his unspeakable astonishment, the first objects he beheld were two ravens combating a third with great fury, while the sufferer, which proved to be the tame one aforesaid, kept loudly vociferating, "fair play;" which so diverted the traveller, that he instantly rescued the oppressed bird, by driving away his adversaries; and returned highly pleased with his morning adventure.

THE MAGPIE.

This bird, which is found in Europe, and also in the plains east of the Rocky Mountains, is remarkable alike for its loquacity and its disposition to theft--a trait of character which belongs to several birds of the same genus. Lady Morgan furnishes us with the following anecdote:--

"A n.o.ble lady of Florence resided in a house which still stands opposite the lofty Doric column which was raised to commemorate the defeat of Pietro Strozzi, and the taking of Sienna, by the tyrannic conqueror of both, Cosmo the First. She lost a valuable pearl necklace, and one of her waiting-women, a very young girl, was accused of the theft. Having solemnly denied the fact, she was put to the torture, which was then practised at Florence. Unable to support its terrible infliction, she acknowledged that 'she was guilty,' and, without further trial, was hung. Shortly after, Florence was visited by a tremendous storm; a thunderbolt fell on the figure of Justice, and split the scales, one of which fell to the earth, and with it fell the ruins of a magpie's nest, containing the pearl necklace. Those scales are still the haunts of birds, and I never saw them hovering round them, without thinking of those 'good old times,' when innocent women could be first tortured, and then hung, on suspicion."

We are informed by Plutarch of a magpie, belonging to a barber at Rome, which could imitate every word it heard uttered. It happened one day that some trumpets were sounded before the shop door, and for some days afterwards the magpie was quite mute, and appeared pensive and melancholy. This change in its manners greatly surprised all who knew it, and it was supposed that the sound of the trumpets had so completely stunned the poor bird, that it was deprived of both voice and hearing. It soon appeared, however, that this was not the case; for Plutarch says, the bird had been all the while occupied in profound meditation, studying how to imitate the sound of the trumpets, which had made a deep impression on him; and at last, to the astonishment of all its friends, it broke its long silence by a very perfect imitation of the flourish of the trumpets it had heard; observing with great accuracy all the repet.i.tions, stops, and changes. But this turned out an unfavorable lesson, for the magpie forgot every thing else, and never afterwards attempted another imitation but that of the trumpets.

THE HUMMING-BIRD.

The following is from the pen of Wilson: "A nest of young humming-birds was once brought to me that were nearly fit to fly; one of them flew out of the nest and was killed. The other was fed with sugar and water, into which it thrust its bill, sucking it with great avidity. I kept it upwards of three months, feeding it on sugar and water; gave it fresh flowers every morning, sprinkled with the liquid, and surrounded the s.p.a.ce in which I kept it with gauze, that it might not injure itself.

It appeared gay, active, and full of spirit, humming from flower to flower, as if in its native wilds, and always expressed, by its motions and chirping, great pleasure at seeing fresh flowers introduced into its cage. Numbers of people visited it from motives of curiosity, and I took every precaution to preserve it, if possible, through the winter.

Unfortunately, however, it got at large in the room, and, flying about, so injured itself, that it soon after died."