The Natural History of Cage Birds Part 33

THE FAUVETTE.

Sylvia hortensis, LATHAM; La Fauvette, BUFFON; Die graue Grasmucke, BECHSTEIN.

The length of this bird is five inches, two and a half of which belong to the tail. The beak, five lines in length, and formed as in the preceding, is brown below, light lead-colour above, and whitish within; the iris is brownish grey; the feet, nine lines high, are strong, and lead-colour; the upper part of the body is reddish grey, tinted slightly with olive brown; the cheeks are darker, and round the eyes whitish; the under part of the body, including the breast and sides, is light reddish grey; the belly is white as far as the under coverts of the tail, which are tinged with reddish grey; the knees are grey; the pen-feathers and tail-feathers are brownish grey, edged with the colour of the back, and spotted with white at the tips; the under coverts of the wings are reddish yellow.

The female differs only in having the under part of the body, as far as the breast, of a lighter colour.

HABITATION.--When wild, this bird, which is found all over Europe, appears to prefer the groves and bushes which skirt the forests, as well as orchards in their vicinity. He arrives some days before the nightingale, and departs at the end of September.

In confinement he is treated like the blackcap, and, being more delicate, must be furnished with a cage.

FOOD.--When wild the fauvette feeds on small caterpillars and the other little insects which are found on the bushes, where he is continually searching for them, uttering at the same time the sweetest and softest song. After midsummer he appears very fond of cherries; he eats the pulp up to the stone, and this causes his beak to be at this season always stained; he also likes red currants and elderberries.

In confinement he is so great an eater that if he is not caged he hardly ever quits the feeding-trough of the nightingale. Though he is more easily tamed than the blackcap, he seldom survives more than two or three years, and the artificial food is no doubt the cause. He appears very fond of the universal paste; but I have often observed that it causes the feathers to fall off to so great a degree that he becomes almost bare, and then I think he dies of cold rather than from any other cause[89].

BREEDING.--The nest of the fauvette, placed in a hedge or bush of white-thorn, at about three feet above the ground, is well built on the outside with blades of gra.s.s and roots, and inside with the finest and softest hay, very seldom with moss. The edges are fastened with spiders' webs and dry coc.o.o.ns. The female lays four or five eggs, of a yellowish white, spotted all over with light ash grey and olive brown. The young, which are hatched after fifteen days'

sitting, are no sooner fledged than they jump out of the nest the moment it is approached.

DISEASES.--They are the same as in the blackcap; but the fauvette is still more subject to the loss of its feathers. It fattens so fast upon the first universal paste that it often dies from this cause.

MODE OF TAKING.--These birds may be caught during the whole of the summer with nooses and springes baited with cherries, red currants, or elderberries. They go also very readily to the water trap, from seven to nine in the morning, and in the evening a little before sunset.

ATTRACTIVE QUALITIES.--"Of the inhabitants of our woods," says Buffon, "fauvettes are the most numerous and agreeable. Lively, nimble, always in motion, they seem occupied only with play and pleasure; as their accents express only joy, it is a pretty sight to watch them sporting, pursuing, and enticing each other; their attacks are gentle, and their combats end with a song."

THE WHITE-BREAST[90]

Motacilla Fruticeti, LINNaeUS; La Pet.i.te Fauvette, BUFFON; Die rostgraue Grasmucke, BECHSTEIN.

This bird, which is but little known, resembles in most points the preceding, but its figure is smaller and its plumage darker. Its length is four inches and three quarters, of which two and a half (being more than half of the whole) belong to the tail. The beak, four lines in length, is brown above and yellowish white below and on the edges; the iris dark brown; the feet, nine lines in height, are pale lead-colour; all the upper part of the body, comprising the wing-coverts, is dusky reddish grey, darker towards the head and lighter towards the rump.

I have never been able to discover any difference between the plumage of the male and female.

OBSERVATIONS.--This bird arrives among us towards the end of April. It frequents hilly places covered with bushes and briars, among which it builds its nest, about four or five feet from the ground, and among the thickest foliage. The eggs, five in number, are whitish, mottled with bluish brown, and speckled with dark maroon. Incubation lasts but thirteen days. At first the young are fed with the smallest caterpillars, afterwards with larger ones, flies, and other insects; but as soon as they can fly they accompany their parents in search of cherries, red currants, elderberries, and, later in the season, the berries of the service tree. The family departs together in the month of September, and then some are taken in nooses or springes baited with elderberries. But this species is not much valued, and does not therefore excite the attention of bird-catchers, who give the preference to the fauvette.

However, this bird is an excellent singer, and though his voice is not so clear and flute-like as that of the fauvette, yet by skilfully introducing his call into his warble, he produces a very striking and agreeable variety. This species is fed and treated like the preceding, but with still greater care, for it is even more delicate.

With all my care I have never been able to preserve it more than two years at the utmost: the difficulty, however, does not appear to proceed from the diet, for being caught in the autumn it soon gets accustomed to the food of the nightingale, by first giving it the berries which it selects in a state of freedom.

THE DUNNOCK, OR HEDGE SPARROW.

Accentor modularis, BECHSTEIN; La Fauvette d'hiver, ou Traine Buisson, BUFFON; Die Braunelle, BECHSTEIN.

This species, which in its gait resembles the wren, seems also a link between its own species and that of the lark, for it does not confine itself to insects; it eats all sorts of small seeds, such as those of the poppy and the gra.s.ses. Its length is five inches and a quarter, two and a quarter of which belong to the tail. The beak, five lines in length, is very sharp, black, whitish at the tip, and the inside rose-colour; the iris purple; the legs, nine lines in height, are yellowish flesh-colour; the narrow head is, together with the neck, dark ash-colour, marked with very dark brown, like that of the sparrow; the breast a deep slate-colour.

The breast of the female is lighter and bluish grey; she has also more brown spots on her head.

HABITATION.--When wild it is found all over Europe, making its abode in thick deep forests. It is with us a bird of pa.s.sage; but some individuals, which come from quite the north, remain during the winter near our dwellings, searching the heaps of wood and stones, the hedges and fences, and, like the wren, entering barns and stables. Those which leave us return at the end of March, stop for some time in the hedges, and then penetrate into the woods.

In confinement this bird is so wakeful and gay that it may be safely left at liberty in the room, having a roosting-place for the night; it is also kept in a cage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BEARDED t.i.t.]

FOOD.--When wild, the great variety of things which serve it for food prevent its ever being at a loss throughout the year. It is equally fond of small insects and worms and small seeds. In spring it feeds on flies, caterpillars, grubs, and maggots, which it seeks for in the hedges, bushes, and in the earth. In summer it feeds chiefly on caterpillars; in autumn on seeds of all kinds and elderberries; and in winter, when the snow has covered all seeds, it has recourse to insects hid in the cracks and crevices of walls and trees.

In confinement it will eat anything that comes to table. It is fond of the universal paste, hemp, rape, and poppy-seeds, and refuses none of these things immediately on being imprisoned, and it soon seems as completely at ease as if accustomed to confinement[91].

BREEDING.--This species lays generally twice a year; placing its nest among the thickest bushes, about five or six feet from the ground; the outside is composed of mosses, and fibres of roots, and wood, and the inside is lined with the fur of deer, hares, and the like. The eggs, five or six in number, are bright bluish green. The young are no sooner fledged than, like the preceding, they quit the nest. Their plumage is then very different from that of their parents: the breast is spotted with grey and yellow, the back with brown and black; lastly, the nostrils and angles of the beak are rose-coloured. They are easily reared on white bread and poppy-seeds moistened with milk.

As soon as they are tamed these birds have a great inclination to build in the room. The male and female collect all the little straws, threads, and similar materials which they can find, to build a nest among the boughs with which they are supplied for the purpose. The female lays even when solitary; they may be paired with red-b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and these unions succeed very well.

DISEASES.--If it were generally true, that birds in a wild state are never ill, this species must be excepted; for, however strange it may appear, the young are subject to the small pox; they are attacked by it while in the nest, or even after they can fly. I have a young bird of this kind, which, at a time when this disease prevailed in my neighbourhood, took it; he recovered, however, tolerably well, but he entirely lost the tail-feathers, which were never afterwards renewed.

Old ones are sometimes caught or killed whose feet and eyes are ulcerated, or have tumours on them; perhaps they may be only chilblains. Weavers' stoves appear to be particularly injurious to these birds; in two or three months their eyes swell, and the feathers fall off all round them; the beak is attacked with scurvy, which spreads to the feet, then all over the body; but they nevertheless continue to live from eight to ten years in these rooms.

MODE OF TAKING.--This is very easy at their return in the spring. As soon as they appear in the hedges, where they soon discover themselves by the cry "_issri_," a little place near, where the earth is bare, must be found; after having placed limed twigs, and thrown among them earth or meal worms for a bait, the dunnock is gently driven towards them without alarming him; as soon as he perceives the worms he darts upon them and falls into the snare. In the autumn they may be caught in the area and with a noose; in winter in the white-throat's trap; but they resort in the greatest numbers to the water trap, not so much for the sake of bathing as to seek for dead insects or decayed roots.

ATTRACTIVE QUALITIES.--However agreeable this bird may be in the room, from its good humour, agility, gaiety, and song, it does not deserve the name of winter nightingale, which it bears in some places; its song is too simple and short; it is a little couplet, composed of a strain of the lark and one of the wren. The sounds _tchondi, hondi, hondi_ are repeated frequently and for a long time, always descending a sixth, and gradually diminishing in power. This song is accompanied with an uninterrupted movement of the wings and tail, and lasts through the year, except at the moulting season. Some young ones, reared in confinement, will, if placed beside a fine singing bird, learn enough of its song to embellish their own. But, whatever may be a.s.serted on the subject, they never succeed in imitating the nightingale. When the dunnock disputes with its fellow captives for a place or for food its anger evaporates in a song, like the crested lark and the wagtail.

THE RED-BREAST.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Motacilla rubecula, LINNaeUS; Le Rouge-gorge, BUFFON; Das Rothkelchen, BECHSTEIN.

The red-breast is almost universally known in Europe. It is five inches and three quarters long, two and a quarter of which belong to the tail.

The beak is five lines in length, and horn brown, with the lower base and the inside yellow; the iris is deep brown; the shanks, eleven lines in height, are of the same colour; the forehead, cheeks, and under part of the body, from the beak to the bottom of the breast, are orange red; the upper part of the body and the wing-coverts dingy olive; the first wing-coverts have at their tip a little triangular spot.

The female, which is rather smaller, is not so orange-coloured on the forehead, and this colour is not so bright upon the breast; the shanks are a purplish brown; yellow spots are almost always absent from the wing-coverts; the old females alone having very small yellow marks.

The males of the first year, which are caught in the spring, very much resemble the females: they have but very small yellow spots, and sometimes none; the breast is saffron yellow; but the feet are the distinguishing mark, being always very dark brown.

This species has varieties, as the white red-breast and the variegated red-breast. In confinement, by sometimes removing successively the quill-feathers and tail-feathers out of the moulting season, they will at last be replaced by white ones. These birds are very pretty; I have had several in this way, but I have observed that these last feathers are so weak and delicate that they are easily injured and broken. This repeated operation must give pain to the little creatures, on which account it should be avoided.

HABITATION.--When wild, these birds are found in abundance during the period of migration, on hedges and bushes, but in summer they must be sought in the woods. "This retreat," it has been said, "is necessary to their happiness: the male is engrossed with the society of his mate, all other company is troublesome; he pursues eagerly the birds of his species, and drives them from the district he has chosen for himself; the same bush never contains two pairs of these birds." The red-b.r.e.a.s.t.s return to us (in Germany) about the middle of March[92]; they stop for about a fortnight in the hedges, and then proceed into the woods. In October they return towards the bushes, which they busily search as they travel, and proceed gradually to their destination. Some delay their departure till November, some will even remain here and there throughout the winter, but generally to their cost, as their life is usually sacrificed by these delays. Necessity then forces them to draw near to houses, dunghills, and stables, where they are generally caught by men or cats, or die of hunger and cold if the frost is long and severe, and the snow deep. Care must be taken in hard weather not to transport them suddenly into a warm room, the rapid change from cold to heat invariably kills them. They should at first be put in a cold room, and be gradually accustomed to warm air; with these precautions they will do as well as those which are caught in the autumn or spring.

In confinement the inhabitants of my neighbourhood like to see red-b.r.e.a.s.t.s hopping about the room, and they make a roost for them of oak or elm branches. They find that this bird destroys flies and even bugs. Such a situation appears to agree with him very well, as he lives in this way from ten to twelve years. He is so jealous and unsociable that he must not have a companion; he must be quite alone; a second would cause battles which would end only with the death of one of the combatants; if, however, they are equal in strength, and in a large room, they will divide it, and each taking possession of his half, they remain in peace, unless one should pa.s.s his limits, in which case war begins, and is maintained to the last extremity.

In order the better to enjoy their pretty song, they are provided with a cage generally resembling that of the nightingale.

FOOD.--When wild the red-breast feeds on all sorts of insects, which are pursued with great skill and agility; sometimes this bird is seen fluttering like a b.u.t.terfly round a leaf on which is a fly, or if he sees an earth-worm he hops forward flapping his wings, and seizes it.

In autumn he eats different sorts of berries.

In confinement, by giving him at first some earth or meal worms, and in the autumn elderberries, he soon gets accustomed to eat anything: he picks up crumbs of bread, the little fibres of meat, and the like, but cheese appears his favourite food. When hopping about the bird-room he likes the universal paste very much[93]. He chiefly requires a regular supply of fresh water, both for drinking and bathing; and he makes himself so wet as to conceal the colours of his plumage.

BREEDING.--The red-breast lays twice a year. The nest, placed near the ground, either among moss, in the crevices of stones, among the roots of a tree, or in the hole of an old felled trunk, is carelessly formed of moss, lined with fine hay, hair, and feathers. She lays from four to six eggs, of a yellowish white, with lines and spots joined and mixed together of a reddish colour; the colours become deeper as the spots approach the large end, where they form a crown of a light brown colour. The young birds are at first covered with yellow down, like chickens, they then become grey, and their feathers are edged with dusky yellow; they do not acquire the orange red till they have moulted. They are easily reared on white bread soaked in boiled milk. When their cage is placed beside a nightingale they acquire some parts of his song, which, introduced into their own, make a very pretty mixture.

DISEASES.--Their most common disorder is diarrhoea, for which some spiders are administered. Decline is often cured with plenty of ants'