Aileen Aroon, A Memoir

Chapter Twelve.

Early Studies in Natural History

Shortly after the melancholy death of Tip, some one presented me with a puppy, and some one else presented me with a rook. My knowledge of natural history was thus progressing. That unhappy pup took the distemper and died. If treated for the dire complaint at all, it was no doubt after the rough and harsh fashion, common, till very lately, of battling with it.

So my puppy died. As to the rook, a quicker fate was reserved for him. The bird and I soon grew as thick as thieves. He was a very affectionate old chap, and slept at night in a starling’s cage in the bedroom. He was likewise a somewhat noisy bird, and very self-asserting, and would never allow us to sleep a wink after five in the morning. Maggie tried putting his breakfast into the cage the night before. This only made matters worse, for he got up at three o’clock to eat it, and was quite prepared for another at five. Maggie said she loved the bird, because he saved her so many scoldings by wakening her so punctually every morning. I should think he did waken her, with a vengeance too. He had a peculiar way of roaring “Caw! Caw!” that would have wakened Rip Van Winkle himself. Like the great Highland bagpipe, the voice of a healthy rook sounds very well about a mile off, but it isn’t exactly the thing for indoor delectation. But my uncle sat down upon my poor rook one day, and the bird gave vent to one last “Caw!” and was heard again – nevermore. My mother told him he ought to be more careful. My uncle sat down on the same chair again next day, and, somehow, a pin went into him further than was pleasant. Then I told him he ought to be more careful, and he boxed my ears, and I bit him, and nursie came and shook me and whacked me on the back as if I had been choking; so, on the whole, I think I was rather roughly dealt with between the two of them. However, I took it out of Maggie in another way, and found her very necessary and handy in my study of natural history, which, even at this early age, I had developed a taste for. I had as a plaything a small wooden church, which I fondled all day, and took to bed with me at night. One fine day I had an adventure with a wasp which taught me a lesson. I had half-filled my little church with flies to represent a congregation, but as they wouldn’t sing unless I shook them, and as Maggie told me nobody ever shook a real church to make the congregation sing, I concluded it was a parson they lacked, and went to catch a large yellow fly, which I saw on the window-ledge. He would make them sing I had no doubt. Well, he made me sing, anyhow. It was long before I forgot the agony inflicted by that sting. Maggie came flying towards me, and I hurled church, congregation, and all at her head, and went off into a first-class fit. But this taught me a lesson, and I never again interfered with any animal or insect, until I had first discovered what their powers of retaliation were; beetles and flies were old favourites, whose attendance at church I compelled. I wasn’t sure of the earthworm at first, nor of the hairy caterpillar, but a happy thought struck me, and, managing to secure a specimen of each, and holding them in a tea-cup, I watched my chance, and when nursie wasn’t looking emptied them both down her back. When the poor girl wriggled and shrieked with horror, I looked calmly on like a young stoic, and asked her did they bite. Finding they didn’t, they became especial favourites with me. I put every new specimen I found, instantly or on the first chance, down poor Maggie’s back or bosom, and thus, day by day, while I increased in stature, day by day I grew in knowledge. I wasn’t quite successful once, however, with a centipede. I had been prospecting, as the Yankees say, around the garden, searching for specimens, and I found this chap under a stone. He was about as long as a penholder, and had apparently as many legs as a legion of the Black Watch. Under these circumstances, thinks I to myself what a capital parson he’ll make. So I dismissed all my congregation on the spot, and placed the empty church at his disposal, with the door thereof most invitingly open, but he wouldn’t hear of going in. Perhaps, thought I, he imagines the church isn’t long enough to hold him, so I determined, for his own comfort, to cut him in two with my egg-cup, then I could capture first one end of him, and then the other, and empty them down nursie’s back, and await results. But, woe is me! I had no sooner commenced operations than the ungrateful beast wheeled upwards round my finger and bit it well. I went away to mourn.

When nine years old my opportunities for studying birds and beasts were greatly increased, for, luckily for me, the teacher of my father’s school nearly flogged the life out of me. It might have been more lucky still had he finished the job. However, this man was a bit of a dandy in his way, and was very proud of his school. And one fine day who should walk in at the open doorway but “Davy,” my pet lamb. As soon as he spied me he gave vent to a joyful “Ba-a!” and as there was a table between us, and he couldn’t reach me, he commenced to dance in front of it.

“Good gracious!” cried the teacher, “a sheep of all things in my school, and positively dancing.” On rushing to save my pet, whom he began belabouring with a cane, the man turned all his fury on me, with the above gratifying result.

I was sent to a far-off seminary after this.

Three miles was a long distance for a child to walk to school over a rough country. It was rough but beautiful, hill and dale, healthy moorlands, and pine woods. It was glorious in summer, but when the snows of winter fell and the roads were blocked, it was not quite so agreeable.

I commenced forthwith, however, to make acquaintance with every living thing, whether it were a creepie-creepie living under a stone, or a bull in the fields.

My pets, by the way, were a bull, that I played with as a calf, and could master when old and red-eyed and fierce, half a dozen dogs, and a peacock belonging to a farmer. This bird used to meet me every morning, not for crumbs – he never would eat – but for kind words and caresses.

The wild birds were my especial favourites. I knew them all, and all about them, their haunts, their nests, their plumage, and eggs and habits of life. I lived as much in trees as on the ground, used to study in trees, and often fell asleep aloft, to the great danger of my neck.

I do not think I was ever cruel – intentionally, at all events – to any bird or creature under my care, but I confess to having sometimes taken a young bird from the nest to make a pet of.

I myself, when a little boy, have often sat for half an hour at a time swinging on the topmost branches of a tall fir-tree, with my waistcoat pocket filled with garden worms, watching the ways and motions of a nest of young rooks, and probably I would have to repeat my aerial visit more than once before I could quite make up my mind which to choose. I always took the sauciest, noisiest young rascal of the lot, and I was never mistaken in my choice. Is it not cruelty on my part, you may inquire, to counsel the robbery of a rook’s nest? Well, there are the feelings of the parent birds to be considered, I grant you, but when you take two from five you leave three, and I do not think the rooks mourn many minutes for the missing ones. An attempt was made once upon a time to prove that rooks can’t count farther than three. Thus: an ambush was erected in the midst of a potato field, where rooks were in the habit of assembling in their dusky thousands. When into this ambush there entered one man, or two men, or three men, the gentlemen in black quietly waited until the last man came forth before commencing to dig for potatoes, but when four men entered and three came out, the rooks were satisfied and went to dinner at once. But I feel sure this rule of three does not hold good as far as their young ones are concerned. I know for certain that either cats or dogs will miss an absentee from a litter of even six or more.

Books are very affectionate towards their owners, very tricky and highly amusing. They are great thieves, but they steal in such a funny way that you cannot be angry with them.

Chapter Thirteen.

All About my Bird Pets

Scottish poets cannot keep birds out of their love-songs any more than they can the gloaming star, the bloom of flowers, the scent of golden gorse, or soft winds sighing through woods in summer. And well may the lovely wee linnet be compared to a young and artless maiden, so good and innocent, so gentle and unobtrusive is the bird, and yet withal so blithe. Nor could a better pet be found for girls of a quiet, retiring disposition than the linnet. Some call it a shy bird. This hardly coincides with my own experience, and I dearly like to study the characters of birds and animals of all kinds, and have often discovered something to love and admire even in the wildest beasts that ever roamed o’er prairie or roared in jungle. No, the linnet is not shy, but he is unostentatious; he seems to have the tact to know when a little music would be appreciated, and is by no means loath to trill his sweet song. He is also most affectionate, and if his mistress be but moderately kind to him, he may like other people well enough, but he will love but her alone, and will often and often pipe forth a few bars, in so low a key that she cannot but perceive they are meant for her ear only.

Even in the wild state the rose-linnet courts retirement. Thinking about this bird brings me back once more to the days of my boyhood. I am a tiny, tiny lad trudging home from the distant day-school, over a wide, wild moorland with about a stone of books – Greek and Latin classics and lexicons – in a leather strap over my shoulder. I am – as I ever wished to be – alone. That is, I have no human companionship. But I have that of the wild birds, and the thousand and one wild creatures that inhabit this great stretch of heathy wold, and I fancy they all know me, from yonder hawk poised high in the air to the merlin that sings on a branch of broom; from the wily fox or fierce polecat to the wee mouse that nestles among the withered grass. I have about a score of nests to pay a visit to – the great long-winged screaming whaup’s (curlew’s) among the rushes; the mire-snipe’s and wild duck’s near the marsh; the water-hen’s, with her charming red eggs, near the streamlet; the peewit’s on the knoll; the stonechat’s, with eggs of milky blue, in the cairn; the laverock’s, the woodlark’s, and the wagtail’s, and last, but not least, the titlin’s nest, with the cuckoo’s egg in it. But I linger but a short time at any of these to-day, for on my way to school I saw a rose-linnet singing on a thorn, and have been thinking about it all day. I have been three times thrashed for Cicero, and condemned to detention for two hours after my schoolmates are gone. I have escaped through the window, however. I shall be thrashed for this in the morning, but I should be thrashed for something, at all events, so that matters nothing. The sun is still high in the heavens, summer days are long, I’ll go and look for my linnet’s nest; I haven’t seen one this year yet. The heather is green as yet, and here and there on the moorland is a bush or patch of golden furze, not tall and straggling like the bushes you find in woods, that seem to stretch out their necks as if seeking in vain for the sunlight, but close, compact, hugging the ground, and seeming to weigh down the warm summer air around it with the sweetness of its perfume.

Now, on one of those very bushes, and on the highest twig thereof, I find my cock linnet. His head is held well up, and his little throat swells and throbs with his sweet, melodious song. But I know this is all tact on the bird’s part, and that his heart beats quick with fear as he sees me wandering searchingly from bush to bush. He is trying to look unconcerned. He saw me coming, and enjoined his pretty mate to lie close and not fly out, assuring her that if she did so all would be well.

He does not even fly away at my approach.

“There is no nest of mine anywhere near,” he seems to say. “Is it likely I would be singing so blithely if there were?”

“Ah! but,” I reply, “I feel sure there is, else why are you dressed so gaily? why have you cast aside your sombre hues and donned that crimson vest?”

Pop – I am at the right bush now, and out flies the modest wee female linnet. She had forgotten all her mate told her, she was so frightened she could not lie close. And now I lift a branch and keek in, and am well rewarded. A prettier sight than that little nest affords, to any one fond of birds, cannot easily be conceived. It is not a large one; the outside of it is built of knitted grass and withered weeds, and on the whole it is neat; but inside it is the perfection of beauty and rotundity, and softly and warmly lined with hair of horse and cow, with a few small feathers beneath, to give it extra cosiness. And the eggs – how beautiful! Books simply tell you they are white, dotted, and speckled with red. They are more than this; the groundwork is white, to be sure, but it looks as if the markings were traced by the Angers of some artist fay. It looks as though the fairy artist had been trying to sketch upon them the map of some strange land, for here are blood-red lakes – square, or round, or oval – and rivers running into them and rivers rolling out, so that having once seen a rose-linnet’s egg, you could never mistake it for any other.

“I think,” said Ida, “I should like a linnet, if I knew how to treat it.”

“Well,” I continued, “let me give you a little advice. I have interested you in this bonnie bird, let me tell you then how you are to treat him if you happen to get one, so as to make him perfectly happy, with a happiness that will be reflected upon you, his mistress.”

I always counsel any one who has a pet of any kind to be in a manner jealous of it, for one person is enough to feed and tend it, and that person should be its owner.

Of course, if you mean to have one as a companion you will procure a male bird, and one as pretty as possible, but even those less bright in colour sing well. Let his cage be a square or long one, and just as roomy as you please; birds in confinement cannot have too much space to move about in. Keep the cage exceedingly clean and free from damp, give the bird fresh water every morning, and see that he has a due allowance of clean dry seed. The food is principally canary-seed with some rape in it, and a small portion of flax; but although you may now and then give him a portion of bruised hemp seed, be careful and remember hemp is both stimulating and over-fattening. Many a bird gets enlargement of the liver, and heart disease and consequent asthma, from eating too freely and often of hemp. In summer it should never be given, but in cold weather it is less harmful.

Green food should not be forgotten. The best is chic-weed – ripe – and groundsel, with – when you can get it – a little watercress. There are many seedling weeds which you may find in your walks by the wayside, which you may bring home to your lintie. If you make a practice of doing this, he will evince double the joy and pleasure at seeing you on your return.

Never leave any green food longer than a day either in or over the cage. So shall your pet be healthy, and live for many years to give you comfort with his sweet fond voice. I may just mention that the linnet will learn the song of some other birds, notably that of the woodlark. Sea-sand may be put in the bottom of the cage, and when the bird begins to lose its feathers and moult, be extra kind and careful with it, covering the cage partly over, and taking care to keep away draughts. After the feathers begin to come you may put a rusty nail in the water. This is a tonic, but I do not believe in giving it too soon.

Let me now say a word about another of my boyhood’s pets – the robin.

But I hardly know where or how I am to begin, nor am I sure that my theme will not run right away with me when I do commence. My winged horse – my Pegasus – must be kept well in hand while speaking about my little favourite, the robin. Happy thought, however! I will tell you nothing I think you know already.

The robin, then, like the domestic cat, is too well known to need description. We who live in the country have him with us all the year round, and we know his charming song wherever we hear it. He may seem to desert our habitations for a few months in the early spring-time, for he is then very busy, having all the care and responsibility of a family on his head; but he is not far away. He is only in the neighbouring grove or orchard, and if we pay him a visit there he will sing to us very pleasantly, as if glad to see us. And one fine morning we find him on the lawn-gate again, bobbing and becking to us, and looking as proud as a pasha because he has his little wife and three of the family with him. His wife is not a Jenny Wren, as some suppose, but a lovely wee robin just like himself, only a trifle smaller, and not quite so red on the breast nor so bold as her partner. And the young ones, what charmingly innocent little things they look, with their broad beaks and their apologies for tails! I have often known them taken for juvenile thrushes, because their breasts are not red, but a kind of yellow with speckles in it.

“Tcheet, tcheet!” cries Robin, on the gate, bobbing at you again; “throw out some crumbs. My wife is a bit shy; she has never been much in society; but just see how the young ones can eat.”

Well, Robin is one of the earliest birds of a morning that I know. He is up long before the bickering sparrows, and eke before the mavis. His song mingles with your morning dreams, and finally wakes you to the joys and duties of another day, and if you peep out at the window you will probably see him on the lawn, hauling some unhappy worm out of its hole. I have seen Robin get hold of too big a worm, and, after pulling a piece of it out as long as a penholder, fly away with a frightened “Tcheet, tcheet!” as much as to say, “Dear me! I didn’t know there were yards and yards of you. You must be a snake or something.”

Robin sings quite late at night too, long after the mavis is mute and every other bird has retired. And all day long in autumn he sings. During the winter months, especially if there be snow on the ground, he comes boldly to the window-ledge, and doesn’t ask, but demands his food, as brazenly as a German bandsman. Sparrows usually come with him, but if they dare to touch a bit of food that he has his eye on they catch it. My robin insists upon coming into my study in winter. He likes the window left open though, and I don’t, and on this account we have little petulancies, and if I turn him out he takes revenge by flying against the French window, and mudding all the pane with his feet.