The Natural History of Cage Birds Part 42

BREEDING.--When wild, their nest, negligently formed of dried sticks, is tolerably secure when placed in a pine, but is often blown down when in a beech. The female lays two white eggs.

In the house the turtle dove is given a small straw basket, in which it builds, for, whether reared from the nest, or taken when full grown, it pairs without difficulty, and produces young ones. It will also pair with the collared turtle.

The cooing of the male is peculiar; he utters a deep prolonged sound, then bends his head and stops. The young birds are grey on the upper part of the body, and spotted with bluish black on the wings. Those sprung from a collared and a common turtle dove are more or less like either; generally they are reddish grey on the head, neck, and breast, the back and wing-coverts, with red appearing through the grey; the belly, the secondary quill-feathers, and the end of the tail, are white, and the primaries greyish brown. These birds are fruitful, and produce others; what is curious is that they are larger than the parent birds, and have a peculiar note. This is certainly also the case with other mule birds, as I have often observed.

MODE OF TAKING.--This is the same as with the two preceding species; snares placed where salt is strewed for deer are sufficient.

ATTRACTIVE QUALITIES.--The inhabitants of our forest villages are very fond of having this turtle dove in their stove apartments, less on account of its agreeable qualities than from the persuasion that it cures their colds and rheumatisms. It is certainly true that this bird is generally ill during the illness of its masters[121]. It will, however, live six or eight years in the house.

THE COLLARED TURTLE.

Columba risoria, LINNaeUS; La Tourterelle a collier, BUFFON; Die Lachtaube, BECHSTEIN.

This bird is twelve inches in length; the beak is reddish white at the base, and dusky on the remaining part; the iris is golden yellow; the shanks are red; the upper part of the body is reddish white, the under part is pure white; the back of the neck is adorned with a black crescent, the points of which turn forward, and the lower part is edged with white; the shafts of the quill and tail feathers are dusky.

The female is whiter than the male.

HABITATION.--This species is a native of India and China, from which it has been brought to Europe. It is very common among our peasants, who fancy it has the power of curing their colds and rheumatisms[122]. They a.s.sign these poor birds some grated place near the stove, sometimes under a bench; if they are allowed to range, their wings must be clipped, to prevent their flying against the windows, and breaking them. They will generally run under the stove, as they are fond of warmth. They may be accustomed to the dovecot, but their showy plumage often occasions them to fall a prey to carnivorous birds. It is also necessary either to warm the dovecot, or remove them to a heated room during the winter.

FOOD.--They prefer wheat, and this should be their common food; they will also eat millet, linseed, poppy, and rape-seed, and even bread.

The peasants give them the siftings of their corn.

BREEDING.--A piece of fur, or soft stuff, or still better, a little basket, serves as the foundation for their nests. To this they merely add a little straw, on which they lay two white eggs. They sit on these a fortnight, but rarely hatch more than one, either from the egg being unfruitful, or from the carelessness of the parent birds.

It is therefore rare to see them rear six young ones in the year.

These resemble the old ones, and the s.e.x is known by the absence or presence of the reddish colour.

DISEASES.--Besides decline, they are subject to all the diseases that attack the persons shut up in the same room; small-pox, when the children have it; swollen legs, when any one is attacked with this complaint; and tumours in the feet, when these are prevalent. Thus we see they partake of the diseases of their masters, but without curing them, which is contrary to the ridiculous persuasion of the ignorant peasant. Yet with all these evils they will live seven years.

ATTRACTIVE QUALITIES.--These birds are very neat and gentle. Their cooing resembles laughter; but, besides this, the male has other tones still more tender, to invite his mate to come to the nest, and he pa.s.ses the night close to her side. When he coos he does not turn like the domestic pigeon, but hops forward a little, then stops, bends his head to the ground, and swells his crop.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE QUAIL.]

POULTRY.

CHARACTERISTICS.--These birds are characterised by the beak being raised, and the upper mandible being arched, so that the edges of it go beyond those of the under mandible. The nostrils are covered with a convex cartilaginous membrane; the tail is composed of more than twelve feathers; the toes are connected as far as the first joint. Most of the species feed on grain, which is softened in their crops. I only know of six species that can be tamed in the house.

THE COMMON PARTRIDGE.

Tetrao Perdrix, LINNaeUS; La Perdrix grise, BUFFON; Das gemeine Rebhuhn, BECHSTEIN.

This well known bird, which is very fleshy, and has but few feathers, measures twelve inches and a half. Its beak is bluish, the feet brownish blush red; under each eye is a naked skin of a bright scarlet colour; the general colour of the plumage is brown and ash grey, mixed with black; the forehead, a streak above the eyes, and the throat, are fine chestnut brown; the fore part of the neck and the breast are ash grey, with very fine black lines; below the breast is a deep chestnut brown streak in the shape of a horse shoe, which is not found in the female, or at least not so large nor so clearly defined; the quill-feathers are dusky, with cross bands of rust red; the tail-feathers are rust brown.

HABITATION.--The common partridge is found throughout Europe, in fields and adjoining woods: when in the open country, thickets and bushes serve as a retreat during the night. In wide plains, where the frosts are severe, and the snow so deep that the game is in danger of perishing, it is customary, in winter, to catch in a net as many as possible of these birds, and keep them in a warmed room with a high ceiling. If such a room cannot be had, the top of the room and windows should be hung with cloth, to prevent the frightened birds from injuring themselves.

FOOD.--In the house, when permitted to range, partridges may be fed on barley and wheat. They will also eat bread, the common universal paste, cabbage, beet, and lettuce; for they like green vegetables, and these are almost indispensable to their health. In a state of liberty, they generally feed in winter on the tops of gra.s.s and young springing seeds. In the summer, they eat clover and other green plants, as well as all kinds of grain. They often roll in moist sand, which they should be allowed to do in the house.

BREEDING.--The best way to domesticate the partridge, is to rear it young, in which case it becomes extremely tame, and its habits are very pleasing. These young birds must be fed at first on ants' eggs and hens' eggs boiled hard and chopped up with salad; afterwards they will eat barley and other dry food. The covey often consists of twenty young ones, which follow the mother as soon as they are hatched, and often fall in the way of mowers, shepherds, and huntsmen. I am persuaded that it would not be difficult to render these birds quite domestic, if the eggs were hatched by our barn-door fowls, in an open, yet enclosed place, clipping the wings of the young ones, allowing them to range, during the summer, in a garden surrounded with walls, and giving them plenty of food. Supposing that this plan did not quite succeed the first summer, one would have at least half-tamed birds, which, by following the same plan, would gradually become more and more accustomed to domestic food, the society of man, and would certainly at last breed in the house, like our common fowls.

THE COMMON QUAIL.

Tetrao coturnix, LINNaeUS; La Caille, BUFFON; Die Wachtel, BECHSTEIN.

This species is the most common of wild poultry kept in the house. It is rather more than seven inches in length. The beak is short and horn-coloured, dusky in summer, and ash grey in winter, like the partridge's and common fowl's; the iris is olive brown; the feet pale bluish red; on the upper part of the body are dusky and rust-red spots, with some small white streaks; the throat is dusky, surrounded with two chestnut brown bands; the front of the neck and the breast are pale rust red, with some longitudinal dark streaks; the belly is dusky white; the thighs are reddish grey; the quill-feathers are dark grey, crossed by many rust red lines; the tail is short, dark brown, with pale rust red streaks across it.

The female differs sensibly; her throat is white, and her breast, paler than that of the male, is spotted with black like the thrush's.

HABITATION.--When wild the quail is found throughout the old world.

Unlike the other species of poultry, it is a bird of pa.s.sage, arriving in Europe in May, and departing the end of September. It keeps continually in corn fields, preferring those of wheat.

In the house, if allowed to range, its gentleness, neatness, and peculiar motions, are seen to advantage; but it is often kept in a cage of the following make:--A small box two feet long, one foot deep, and four high, of any shape which is preferred; in this are left two or three openings, one for drinking at, the other to give light; besides this all is dark; the bottom is a drawer, which should be covered with sand, and have a seed drawer at one end; the top is of green cloth, for as the quail often springs up it would hurt itself were it of wood. This case should be suspended during the summer outside the window, for the quail sings much more when confined in this manner than if allowed to range the room, where there are many things to call off its attention from its song[123].

When a male without the female is allowed to run about the room, it is always necessary to shut it up in June (the pairing season), or else its ardent feelings tempt it to attack all the other birds, particularly those with a dark plumage, somewhat resembling its own.

Larks, for example, it will follow, and pluck out their feathers till they are nearly bare.

FOOD.--In a wild state the quail feeds on wheat and other corn, rape-seed, millet, hemp-seed, and the like. It also eats green vegetables, as well as insects, and particularly ants' eggs.

In the house it is fed on the same food, adding bread, barley meal mixed with milk, the universal paste, and occasionally salad or cabbage chopped up small, and, that it may want nothing to keep it in health, plenty of river sand for it to roll in and to peck up grains, which a.s.sist its digestion; but this sand must be damp, for if dry it will not touch it. It drinks a great deal, and the water, contrary to the opinion of some persons, should be clear, never turbid. It moults twice in the year, once in autumn, and again in spring; it then requires river sand, and greater attention than at other times.

BREEDING.--The quail breeds very late, never before July. Its nest, if it can be called so, is a hole scratched in the earth, in which it lays from ten to fourteen bluish-white eggs, with large brown spots.

These are hatched after three weeks' incubation. The young ones, all hairy, follow the mother the moment they leave the sh.e.l.l. Their feathers grow quickly, for in the autumn they are able to depart with her to the southern countries. The males are so ardent, that if one is placed in a room with a female, he will pursue her immediately with extraordinary eagerness, tearing off her feathers if she resists in the least; he is less violent if he has been in the same room with her during the year. The female, in this case, lays a great many eggs, but rarely sits on them; yet if young ones are brought her from the fields, she eagerly receives them under her wings, and becomes a very affectionate mother to them. The young must be fed on eggs boiled hard and cut small, but the best way is to take the mother with the covey, which may be done with a net. She watches over them attentively, and they are more easily reared. During the first year one would think that all in the covey were females, the males resemble them so much, particularly before the brown shows itself on the throat.

MODE OF TAKING.--There are several different methods of taking quails, but I shall only mention the commonest and easiest. The male birds are generally caught in a net, called a quail-net, by means of a call which imitates the cry of the female in the breeding season; it is the way adopted by bird-catchers in the spring, when they wish to take a male that sings in a superior manner, that is, which repeats a dozen times following the syllables "_pieveroie_." If the male has not yet met with a mate, and if he has not been rendered suspicious by some unskilful bird-catcher, he will run eagerly into the snare.

The most important thing is to have a good call; they may be had cheap of turners at Nuremberg, who make them of leather, with a pipe turned from the bone of a cat or hare, or the leg of a stork; but they may easily be made by any body. The first thing necessary is a piece of calf-skin, one foot in length, and four inches in breadth, the sides must be sewed together within two inches of the end, and the bottom filled with a piece of wood an inch and a half in length, and rings composed of thick leather, the diameter of the interior opening not exceeding an inch and a half, are pushed into the sewed cylinder, and kept about a quarter of an inch apart; the whole may afterwards be pressed close together, making the rings touch each other; then a tube made of the bone of a goose or hare, and filled at the end like a common whistle, is fastened to the part of the cylinder left unsewed; the interior is then stopped with wax near the notch on the side of the leather, and a hole pierced through it with a knitting-needle; the upper part of the tube must also be stopped with wax, and lastly, the lower part, which is thus become a kind of whistle, is very firmly tied to the unsewn part of the cylinder. When the call is to be used, the lower end must be held firmly in one hand, and the leather cylinder worked up and down with the other, making the rings approach and separate, which produces the notes of the female, "_peuk, peuk, pupu_."

As soon as the male quail is heard that you wish to procure, you must advance softly to within fifty paces of his station, and place the tray amongst the wheat in such a position as will suffer it to fall level with the ground, to prevent the bird's pa.s.sing under and escaping. Then retire a few steps back, when the quail will soon utter its song, to which reply with two or three notes, that when the quail is silent he may only hear one or two, from the call exactly resembling the cry of the female. If this is not done with care, the bird will suspect treachery, and will either retire or remain silent, and never after fall into such a snare; but if skilfully done, it is surprising to see how the bird proceeds directly to the call: if by chance he miss the trap, he will go so near as to be within reach of the hand; in this case it is best to retire softly to the other side of the trap and repeat the call, which will again attract it. There are some quails that know how to avoid the net, particularly if placed in too open and exposed a place. In this case it is safest to turn it in a corner at both ends, and thus when it tries to turn it becomes entangled.

It is proper to notice, that in damp weather, or when it rains, the quail does not run, but flies immediately towards the call. It does this also in dewy mornings and evenings; dry days should therefore be chosen for this chase. In the pairing season, two, three, or even four quails may be taken at the same place.

If no male is heard in the field, the call of the female must be well imitated on a larger and more powerful bird-call, and, if any males are within hearing, they will not fail to answer; the person must then advance quickly, placing the net so as to stop their road, and repeat the call.

When a female is to be caught, it is best to employ a common net, such as is used to take quails in autumn; but this chase should be deferred till towards the end of harvest, when most of the corn is cut, and only a few pieces left standing, which serve to harbour numbers of these birds. Several nets are used at once, as many as six or eight; some of them are placed across the field of corn, and the others parallel to them at the extremity of the same field: this being done, the party go to the opposite side and begin to drive the quails into the nets in the middle of the field by means of a packthread stretched across the corn, having little bells suspended to it by threads, so as almost to touch the ground, two persons holding it, and as they advance shaking it from time to time. As soon as the prisoners are secured, the march is continued towards the nets at the end of the field; and in this manner great numbers of quails, both male and female, are procured either for the house or for the table.

ATTRACTIVE QUALITIES.--Besides beauty of form and plumage, the song of this bird is no slight recommendation to the amateur. In the breeding season, that of the male commences by repeating softly, tones resembling "_verra, verra_," followed by the word "_pieveroie_,"

uttered in a bold tone, with the neck raised, the eyes shut, and the head inclined on one side. Those that repeat the last syllables ten or twelve times consecutively, are the most esteemed. That of the female only consists of "_verra, verra_," "_pupu, pupu_," the two last syllables being those by which the male and the female attract each other's attention; when alarmed or angry their cry resembles "_guillah!_" but at other times it is only a murmur, resembling the purring of a cat.

The quail never sings when left to run about in a light room, except during the night, but continually when in a darkened cage. Those reared from the nest begin to sing the end of December, and continue till September; whilst those taken full grown rarely commence till the beginning of May, and cease in August.

[Ill.u.s.tration]