The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1893-04-30

| This was an exciting adventure, because
while the small birds were having their
wing feathers counted the mother behaved
| like crazy creature.
Mayo assured us that the singers, or
males, are only to be distinguished by
! nine white feathers in the wings, while
the females only have eight-so altogether
similar otherwise is their appearance.
| Finally, Two were safely purloined and
declared to be future tenors of excellent
! quality. Despite the parents frantic
protestations these were transferred into
| the cage at hand and carried to the porch
at the house.
| What hideous young creatures my
'singers'' werei They seemed all head,
all eyes and mouth. The mouths APP
| peared to be lined with bright yellow vel
vet, and were spread constantly open in
sort of a bird gasp, as though trying to
| squawk without success. Their tails
were still undeveloped and they presented
very bobby. topheayy appearance when
on their feeU.
l fed them with hard boiled eggs,
mashed fine bits OF lettuce leaf and oc-
casionally angle worms, and it was nee
essary to poke all this food down thsir
yellow threats; they seemed utterly help
! less.
/ | soon discovered that the statements of
the negroes concerning the persistent fol-
lowing OF the mother bird were true.
There was no part of the house or grounds
where I could hang that cage
and evade her haunting pre-
sence. She followed them and the
noise of her uninterrupted daclamatory
chirpiug filled the place. Her mate ap-
peared too, one day, with her, and con-
veyed parental instructions in a. short
terse song.
The mother, coaxed, begged, implored
them, in almost human tones; | had no
doubt she was entreating them to leave
the cage and return to the nest, for her
cries were mingled with efforts to free
them by wrenching the wires with her
beak. Finding herself utterly powerless
to liberate them she began to tempt their
appetites with daintie5 from the fields
and garden-iuicy caterpillers, fat worms
and occasional berries, until soon a pro-
nounced distate for my provisions be-
came apparent They scorned hard
boiled eggs and lettuce leaves, and al
together grew perfectly insubordinate
under my authority.
This sort of thing was kept up for fully
two weeks, with undated fervor on the
parents part, and Increasing demoraliza-
tion upon that of the children. The
negroes continued to reiterate their warn
ings and the old NANNY said | would
soon see the end.
regret to state that their prophecies
we're literally verified.
There came a day when the mother
urgent cries became unendurably plead
ing and heart breaking. l was
almost at the point OF liberating my
two tenors in fact They had, by this
time, grown somewhat and had learned
to make certain unmodulated sounds
in their yellow throats; they seemed to
be expressing to their mother their ina
bility to comply with her entreaties to
come forth.
This evidently rendered her desperate
She flew deliriously about from cage to
tree, and back again from tree to cage.
At length she took a long fight straight
down to the end of the garden, end saw
her white wings flashing through the
avenue of fig trees, back and forth. Pres
emily she returned and again hung foDdly
over the cage for a while; then she de-
parted.
That afternoon my birds became mute
and droopy. All life seemed to have gone
out from their feathers. They hobbled
helplessly about the cage and refused to
eat. Their eyes blinked in weird fash
ion, and they gasped as though their
lungs were afflicted with severe pneu-
monia. l was in despair about ever get
ting them north.
They survived the night, however, and
the next morning when l looked at them
for they were hung indoors during the
night-Ihey were still painting in that
same peculiar manner. In order to re-
vive them, hung their cage out in the
fresh morning sunlight, against an acacia
tree and this was the fatal move.
In jiffy that mother bird was perched
on top of the cage, chattering more
earnestly and vociferously than ever.
But they were now too weak to talk. In
a moment more she made another sally 20
the foot of the garden, and then return
ing she engaged in an interview with
them from the top of the cage.
ssIt's all ovah wit 'em now, honeyl'
croaked nanny from an observation
window. "She's done got dat pi-zon
spi-dah, dis time, sho' noughI" And
her words were true
/ hurriedly took down the cage and
looked within. The birds were both
writhing with contortions and evidently
at their last gasp. Their heads were
doubled back until they almost reached
their tails, SO serious was the spinal az
lection; their mouths were spread to al |
most double their ordinary width, and |
their legs tottered distressingly. |
First one, and then the other, fell /