Those who study the habits of birds soon find that they have what might be called many essentially human traits. They are brave and persevering, devoted and patient and often alas! greedy, cowardly and quarrelsome.

A bird-loving friend of mine used to place food in a sunny place in her garden and then watch the feathered folk who came to enjoy her bounty. The fat, saucy robins ate voraciously, and a pair of cardinals that had built amongst the vines in her neighbor’s porch first flew down with a timid “tweet, tweet,” until mustering up all their spirit, made a dash for the bread crumbs, finally flying away with the largest morsels.

The most greedy and quarrelsome of them all was a red-headed wood-pecker that kept the others at a distance, and helping himself well, often came back at once to fight off the English sparrows which, when he left the feast came to take their turn. For, strange to say, they showed nothing of the characteristics usually attributed to them, but waited until he had eaten, either politely or prudently. The English sparrow, it need hardly be said, has marvelous adaptability and lives and fends for himself anywhere, from the barren spaces about Peking where a little coarse grass furnishes him seed, to the crowded streets of European capitals.

Professor Albert Koebele, the distinguished entomologist who introduced the lady-bird into the orange orchards of California[,] thereby saving the crops, formerly connected with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and thereafter employed by the Planter’s Association of Hawaii[,] always asserted that, while a good deal of a nuisance, the English sparrow was never given credit for his usefulness.

A man of high scientific attainments and consequently a very close observer, he said that they devoured in a season thousands of destructive insects. I had some evidence of this in my own little garden when the sweet-peas became infected with the flies [text illegible]. The birds found them almost as soon as they appeared, ate them with a gusto, and the vines bloomed as they never had before.

I saw a pretty evidence of maternal discipline on the part of a mother bird with her newly fledged brood, which my sister and myself watched from a window. She had brought them down into a sheltered bath in the garden. They were ranged in a row and fed, each in its turn, a pretty sight. Finally, one of the four became impatient, and instead of waiting his turn, ran toward her to get the tempting morsel she was carrying. Instead of gratifying him she went calmly to the other three, gave the worm to one, and did not feed the greedy bird until all the others had been supplied. It was a very human proceeding, and I should hesitate to tell it if I were not able to produce “a competent witness.”

That the English sparrow is also much of a nuisance cannot be denied, and it seems rather sad that he has formed such an intimacy with mankind to be so coldly regarded. He has a bad habit of taking possession of every nook about our dwellings into which he can stuff a shabby, ragged nest, and incredible quantities of his building materials often choke the chimney which the birds also favor. This noisy student chirping at day-break outside the windows is also a fault to be charged against him.

His impudence is great, and often funny. I once saw a little incident that illustrated this trait amusingly, in which a bold cock sparrow and timid barnyard hen were the actors. The hen was walking the fence on which sat the saucy bird preening his feathers and sunning himself. The big hen approached slowly and cautiously, while the sparrow went on with his toilette, not deigning to notice her. As she drew nearer she turned her head first on one side and then on the other, after the manner of her kind, but the sparrow did not budge. Finally she flew down on the ground and up on the other side, continuing her walk. The sparrow gave no sign that he was aware of this proceeding either, and, when he was quite ready, flew away chattering in derision.

A friend living in Oak Park told me of remarkable proof of intelligence shown by a cat-bird. He had found a bit of bread so dry that he could not break it and too long to swallow at one mouthful. He picked it up deliberately, carried it to a little pool made by the trickling of the garden hose, dipped it in, and when sufficiently softened ate it.

Another friend living in Chelsea, London, had an “American” verandah built at the rear of her house looking out into the garden. From this point of vantage she saw much of the doings of the sparrows, which, with their friends, the starlings, enjoyed the freedom of the place. One large, strong male bird seemed to be the leader, and was treated with marked consideration by the other birds. When one of the frequent nesting seasons came this bird was unusually busy. He had not time to exchange courtesies with his friends, or even for waging war. He was on the wing all day long, coming and going, fetching quantities of grass, string and other materials. Attracted by this unusual industry she discovered that he was busy building two nests—feathered ____ [horman, he-man, lionman] that he was, and he was paying the penalty in being forced to do double duty and work over hours. Nor did this labor end there, for when the broods in the respective nests were hatched, he was forced to work even harder, in helping feed the hungry broods. He had shown commendable prudence in the disposition of his two families, one nest being built in the cornice to the south, and the other, out of sight, to the east. Whether he managed to hide his duplicity from the rival mates, or they had helplessly accepted the situation, she could not learn.

While in England I also saw a charming nest made by the friendly little robin—the true robin, and not a thrush, as is our familiar bird. The gardener had hung his old coat over palings of the back fence, which he left there, and never reclaimed. The little pair, with that confidence in human kind peculiar to them, built their nest in one of the pockets of the old coat, which was sufficiently distended to allow the mother to sit comfortably on her eggs and afterwards to brood over her young. It was a pretty sight, and the little parents did not object as we took a good look at the young which were then almost ready to fly.

Our wren also shows odd judgement [sic] in the selection of nesting-places, and shrew as she is called from her habit of noisy scolding, is often on oddly familiar terms with other birds. In Crawfordsville one pair graciously accepted the assistance of the sparrows in feeding their young which are amongst the most voracious of their kind. A single young wren, I was told by a competent naturalist, could eat its weight in insects within twenty-four hours. The sparrows worked faithfully all day with the parent birds bringing the proper food for the young—another proof that they are the enemies of destructive insects.

For many years generations of wrens have nested in a big, old-fashioned tea-kettle suspended on a wire under a tree on the lawn of Captain Henry Talbot near Crawfordsville. The spout of the kettle was large enough to admit the parent birds, and it was also found—the black snake! Several were discovered in the kettle—one stuck fast in the spout, too big to reach its prey. The snakes climb trees easily to rob nests, and the kettle was thereafter swung from the wire, which ended the tragedies. In Dumont Kennedy, the mayor of Crawfordsville, whose beautiful place within the town limits is a bird sanctuary, has many accommodations for nesting wrens, all of which are occupied; from two to three broods being fledged in a single season. He, also, utilized a tea-kettle for their accommodations. It was however, of modern [text illegible], and the spout was too small. He overcame this difficulty by cutting a hole in the side, fastening the kettle to the smooth support of an arbor which black snakes could not climb. The wrens were not the sole tenants, for a pair of robins also took a fancy to the kettle, and built a good, solid nest on top of it, wrens and robins living as friendly neighbors, feeding and rearing their young, without interfering with each other.

Doves and red-birds also find security in the Kennedy grounds, and I was told a pretty story of a pair of cardinals. The nest was carefully hidden in the thick foliage of a tree, and the male fed the female while she was hatching her eggs. He did not carry the food to her, the instinct of self-preservation warning him that his brilliant plumage would attract the notice of bloodthirsty jays, always on the look-out. He flew to a tree at some little distance and made a low peculiar call. The female knew it, and began, first to stir in her nest, then she stole out very silently and cautiously, creeping through the leafage, and making her way to her waiting mate. He then fed her, flying and returning several times with supplies. When she had been fed sufficiently they held a soft, twittering conversation, for a little while, and the male then flew away while the mother bird returned to the nest with as much secrecy as she had left it.

As has been intimated, with all his fine plumage and gay audacity, there is a streak of malicious cruelty in the jay. He is not so pronounced a butcher as the skink [text illegible], but he displays sheer wantonness of blood-shedding, in his ingenuity. That he loves eggs of other birds and eats them with relish, seems to [be] one of his flagrant sins. But not content with this, he frequently tears the nests to shreds[,] dancing and screaming in his impish delight. Often he cannot wait until the nest is finished, and finds where it has been painstakingly hidden and when the builders are away scatters it to the winds.

But he seems to be much happier if he can destroy the young and nest together. This was one such tragedy; a robin had hatched a healthy brood, the sly jay watching the progress of the family from the beginnings. One morning when they had been left unguarded, the cruel enemy swooped down [,] seized them one after the other in his strong claws and dispatched them like a skillful executioner with one stroke of his powerful beak. The bodies were then dropped to the ground where the murderer left them, flying to a neighboring tree where he enjoyed the anguish of the parents when they returned, screaming like a feathered demon.

The goose, from time immemorial, has been the symbol of stupidity. It is an undeserved reputation, for, with indomitable courage, it possesses tireless patience and strong parental affection.

Once, while visiting a country house in Oxfordshire, I saw an illustration of paternal devotion well worth recording. We were talking in the garden and came upon a goose confined in a coop under a tall rose-tree. The surroundings were all that an aesthetic goose could have asked but the mother wished for nothing but her liberty that she might personally supervise the movements of a brood of active goslings that ran about the lawn. This was separated by a paling fence from a grassy paddock in which was a deep, clear pond. In the paddock, close to the fence the disconsolate gander had walked up and down through four days and night until he had worn a distinct path in the turf. Now and then he uttered mournful cries to his imprisoned mate and the heartless goslings, who paid no attention. I was told that when the young were first hatched he had taken prompt possession of them, led them to the pond and proceeded to give them their first lesson in swimming. He piloted them out into the middle of the pond and refused to bring them back until they were nearly exhausted. When they were finally rescued and taken from him, as a proper punishment, the careless mother was shut up in the coop and the too-enthusiastic father restricted to the paddock. He felt the separation so keenly that he neither ate nor slept, and was thin and savage from grief and fasting.

The difficulties of thwarting a hen bent upon sitting are well known. The removal of the eggs, displaced for doorknobs and other unhatchable things, never discourages her. Two such determined fowls belonged to a member of my family. She had tried all the usual methods of breaking up the nests; fastening the fowls in a dark box, drenching them with water, all to no purpose.

Finally, they seemed to have held a consultation and both disappeared. All their old haunts were searched in vain. In due season they came out from under the kitchen—with one small chicken between them! It was plain to be seen that both, hazy as to the real ownership, had sat on the nest with the one egg and were unable to decide whose offspring it really was! They therefore sensibly agreed to share the responsibility of its bringing-up, both clucking and scratching for it until it was in danger of being killed from over-feeding. At night both squeezed into the box with the young one and this amicable arrangement continued until it was old enough to shift for itself. Instead of the hen with one chicken, it was one chicken with two hens!

While walking through the beautiful gardens of the Bishop's Palace at Ely a sea-gull with a broken wing was pointed out to me. It inhabited a small island in an artificial lake in the gardens—my hostess said.

“The poor creature was here when we came, and we would have set it at liberty, gladly, but for its helplessness. It cannot fly, and therefore could not get its food. It has developed a strange appetite,” she added. “It will not touch fish that has not been well-cooked.”

The explanation offered for this lapse of nature was that having been used to feeding on living fish, when able to catch them, it preferred fish that had been cooked to those offered it from the market—proof that even the lower orders are sensible of the advantages of civilization.

The late Professor Edward D. Cope once said, “Thos who watch birds and animals closely will discover that they do strange things.” It is an assertion which many observers of the life going on about them will certainly confirm.

Mary H. Krout
Crawfordsville, Ind.