The bird that paid the briefest visit to my aviary was a hummingbird. I had him for a day, then there was a rush of wings and he was gone. My first experience with this interesting and tiniest member of the bird race was in California. While sauntering one day about the beautiful grounds of the Belmont School a lad said to me, “Come and see a new bird’s nest.” He took me to a spot close to a rustic bridge where, in the long blades of what we in the East call “ribbon grass,” and only a few feet from the ground, a hummingbird had fastened an exquisite, fairylike cup, made of the softest plant down.

There sat the mother bird on two pure white eggs, gazing calmly at the schoolboy who, with a number of his friends, visited her daily. One boy got into serious trouble for, with mistaken zeal, he tried to feed bread-crumbs to the little mother, and brought down on his head a severe reprimand from the older lads.

As I hung over the dainty nest I wondered whether the hummingbird had had an eye for the beautiful, in choosing this spot to bring up her nestlings. Just below her home, a small brook or “creek” as Californians say, ran among great clumps of calla lilies. Among the lilies, lived several frogs, and as we leaned over the rustic bridge above them, we used to call “Little brother,” and rouse one fat frog who would respond, “Lit-tle Bro-ther, Lit-tle Bro-ther,” till the other frogs would take up the friendly refrain and send it resounding away up the creek.

These schoolboys were the best boys that I ever saw to birds. Two hundred of them went daily to and fro in the finely wooded school-grounds, thirty-five acres in extent, and every one seemed to be mindful of the head master’s strict injunction that no one should kill any birds but a bluejay.

All the song-birds were fearless, and rewarded the boys by constant and exquisite music. The hummingbirds were the boys’ chief favorites, and early one morning when they found a number of their pets chilled and benumbed on the ground they took them up, administered sugar and water, and when the little creatures had become quite warm, and the genial Californian sun was well up in the sky, they gave them their liberty, and rejoiced to see these brilliant jewels of the air darting thankfully away.

My next experience with a hummingbird was in Canada. During our pleasant summer weather we always had, if in the city, window-boxes full of nasturtiums, and to these boxes several hummingbirds came daily. Whenever we heard the rapid vibration of our brilliant-winged visitors conversation was hushed in the rooms inside.

One summer evening a man brought me a young hummingbird, and said that his cat had caught it, but fortunately he had been able to rescue it before any harm had been done. The little bird was cold and feeble, and taking him in my hand I put his head against my face. After the manner of young hummingbirds with their parents, before they leave the nest, he put his tiny bill into my mouth and thrust out an extremely long and microscopic tongue in search of food.

He soon discovered that he was not with his parents. I had neither honey nor insects for him. However, I did the next best thing, and sent to a druggist for the purest honey that he had. In the meantime, I put my tiny visitor on the window-boxes. The old hummingbirds must have taken all the honey, for he seemed to find nothing there to satisfy him until I put some of that the druggist sent into the blossoms. I held them to his bill and he drank greedily, then, after looking around the room, he flew up to a picture frame, put his head under his wing, and went to sleep.

The next morning at daylight I looked up at the picture. The hummingbird woke up, said “Peep, peep!” a great number of times, in a thin, sweet voice, no louder than a cricket’s chirp, but did not come down.

I got up, filled a nasturtium with honey, pinned it to a stick, and held it up to my little visitor, who was charmed to have his breakfast in bed. Finally he condescended to come down, visited other flowers and had more drinks, then I opened the window and told him he was too lovely and too exquisite an occupant for an aviary, and he had better seek his brilliant brothers of the outer air.

He went like a flash of sunshine, and I have never regretted releasing him, for I would rather have had an eagle die on my hands than this tiny, painted beauty. Hummingbirds have been kept in captivity when great care has been exercised in providing for them. A conservatory or hothouse is a good place for them, for there they get the sun’s rays which are absolutely essential to their well-being, and they also find on the plants the nearest approach to their natural food.

The objection to this method of keeping these fragile birds is that their delicate frames are quickly injured by coming into contact with hard substances during their rapid flight. The better way is to enclose them inside a mosquito netting stretched on a frame. The best way of all is never to confine them—to give them entire liberty, for of all birds the hummingbird is the least suitable for a life of languishing captivity.

Purple finches have been very favorite pets of mine. Those that I have had have been quiet and amiable, and among the most good-natured and obliging of my birds. The first time I heard them sing I was enraptured. Their song was so sweet, so modest, so melodious. One finch I possessed amused me greatly. He fell into a kind of slavery to a siskin, who followed him and worried him until he at last consented to help her make a nest, in which there were some fine young ones that might have turned out promising hybrids if some wicked, larger bird had not one day killed the neat, determined little mother. I found her headless body beside her nest. She had died in defense of her home. One of the gallinules had probably come along and killed her when she refused to leave her nest.

Her death was a tragedy, but it left the hen-pecked finch free, and he soon devoted himself to his best-loved bird—a female finch of his own class. He adored this shy, second mate—the siskin had been a bold little thing. I often opened the door of the veranda-room for him and sat quietly in a corner while he led in the finch so that they could be away from the rougher birds outside.

Picking up a little bit of wool or hair in his beak the finch would elevate his head-feathers till they almost formed a crest, and would extend his reddish wings and shake them till they looked like a hummingbird’s. Then, making a pretty, coaxing noise, he would spin round and round the room in a kind of skirt dance.

The female teased him a good deal by looking the other way and pretending not to see him, but finally he persuaded her to make a nest, where she laid eggs and hatched them, but the young ones only lived a short time—I think because she was shy and easily frightened from them.

She almost fell a victim to another tragedy, for one day, on stepping to the veranda, I found her swinging from a branch by her slender neck. I ran to her, and found that a long hair had become fastened round her neck, and if I had not opportunely appeared she would soon have strangled to death. Fortunately she seemed none the worse for her adventure.

She was a brave little bird, and one habit of hers used to amuse me immensely. She was a great bather, and enjoyed her baths keenly during mild weather. Unlike many of my birds, who absolutely would not bathe when the cold days came, she kept on, but as if urged to her ablutions by a sense of duty she cried all the time she was bathing.

“Wee, wee!” she would exclaim, as she splashed into the water, then rose up tremblingly, “This water is dreadfully cold, but I must bathe. Wee, wee!” and down she would go again. I kept the aviary quite cool in the winter, but any birds that liked could sit near the hot-water pipes.

Very different from our native finches are the little foreigners of the same name. I am informed that there are thousands and thousands of these tiny foreign finches brought to America from Africa, Asia, and Australia. Some are only two and a half inches long, some are four, few are as large as the average canary.

Many of these finches are bred in captivity, but in most cases they are wild, and are caught by natives with more or less cruelty. Some of the African finches are said to be stupefied by the smoke of fires built under their roosting-places. They drop into blankets spread by the cunning Negroes and are given to captains of vessels in exchange for mock jewelry or rum.

On shipboard they are placed in boxes with wire fronts and their little anxious faces rise tier on tier. The voyage is long, and overcrowding and disease do their work. The wonder is that any survive. Fancy the contrast between the splendors of the African forest and the horrors of this crowded ship!

Upon arriving in America the bird-dealers take the tiny captives in hand, open their filthy cages, put them in clean ones, and exhibit them in their windows.

I do not believe that there is any overpowering desire on the part of the American public to possess these fragile foreigners. However, the bird-dealer must live, and when passers-by see the pale blue, ruby, lavender, or orange-colored little beauties in the windows, they buy them and kindly and ignorantly set about keeping them. Of course, the birds in most cases die, but the Negro goes on getting his rum, the captain gets his money, and the dealer makes a living.

I believe the average person would rather have a canary than a finch. The canary is used to this climate and the finch is not. Why not have all this traffic in caged birds supervised by humane societies? I do not wish to reflect upon the character of all bird-dealers. Many of them are honest men, and some of them I know really love their birds. There are, however, many dealers who are in the business solely to make money, and as long as they are permitted to do as they please, birds will suffer.

Humane societies are not money-making concerns. The members usually consist of the most altruistic citizens of any place. They wish to do what is for the good of their village, town, or city. It would certainly be better for the birds and better for the public to have them regulate this traffic.

I had only two pairs of foreign finches. I would buy no more when I learned how they were captured. The first were cutthroats, and dear little birds they were, so devoted to each other and so surprised to find that the bird world was not full of good little creatures like themselves. When other birds boxed their ears they would fly to each other, rub each other’s heads, and murmur consolation.

They were fawn-colored birds, delicately mottled on the breast, with dark-brown spots. The male only had the red stripe across the throat, that gives him his dreadful name. They were very tame, and often while I stood close to them the male, as if struck by a sudden thought, would jump up, dance up and down on his tiny feet, turning his body from side to side as he did so, and sing a hoarse little song. The song and dance were so comical that I frequently burst out laughing, but his feelings never seemed hurt, and he soon broke out again.

In the intervals between his dancing he would press close to his diminutive mate—she was much smaller than a canary—and carried on his favorite occupation of gently rubbing her head with his beak. Once, when she was struck by a large bird, I saw her fly right to him, and it was very pretty to observe the intensely affectionate, sympathetic way in which he went all over her head with his tiny beak, as if to say, “Which is the sore place?—let me rub it for you.”

They were so devoted to each other that they invariably kept together when flying from one part of the aviary to the other, so that one day I was surprised to see them separated. I looked about and found that they had made a nest over some hot-water pipes. These little birds are very prolific, and hatch young ones freely in captivity. A lady is reported to have had from one pair in three years, as many as forty-five broods—altogether over two hundred and forty eggs, from which one hundred and seventy-six were hatched. I hoped very much that I might have some tiny cutthroats, but the nest was in too warm a place, and the eggs did not amount to anything.

A new bird, on going into an aviary, usually chooses a pet place for sleeping and resting, and keeps to it. The little cutthroats chose their place in some fir trees near the doves. The doves pushed them about a little, but the cutthroats soon learned to avoid them.

The only birds that conquered the doves were the Java sparrows. These sparrows are nice little birds, but I never had a high opinion of their intelligence, until I saw how they dominated these same stubborn doves.

They never bothered the doves in summer, but every winter the Javas persisted in sleeping between them on cold nights. On going into the aviary after dark, I would see one Java tucked between the doves, and another on the outside of one of them.

The clever little things had discovered that the doves’ bodies were warm and comforting. I was puzzled to know how they maintained their footing, for the doves gave resounding slaps of their wings to any little bird who went too near them.

One night I discovered the Javas’ trick. When the dove lifted its wing to strike, the Java slipped under it and missed the force of the blow. After a time the dove got tired of beating, and the Java went to sleep. There were many other birds in the aviary, but the Javas never attempted to sleep near any of them but the ringdoves or the white doves.

After I had had Father Cutthroat nearly a year, he vanished mysteriously, and poor Mrs. Cutthroat in her desolation behaved very badly. She would slyly watch my Bengalese finches—two other tiny birds that looked like fawn and white butterflies—and as soon as they made a nest she would drive them from it, and lay eggs herself in the usurped place.

This excited the Bengalese birds. The male would dance up and down and sing his little song that sounded like, “Hardly able, set the table; hardly able, set the table!” But if he approached the nest, Widow Cutthroat would rise, lean over the edge, sway to and fro, and make a hissing noise like a little snake.

In spite of her apparent devotion to a particular nest, she never kept to it, and as soon as the Bengalese pair made a new one, she would take it from them. I excused her bad conduct on the plea that she was grieving over the loss of her devoted mate. Where could he be? I looked high and low in the aviary below, and the roof-veranda above—if he were dead I would at least find his body. It was impossible for him to escape through the fine wire netting.