BICKERS AND BUSH

The Thrush, Blackbird, Blackcap, Redstart, Mocking-Bird, Raven, Jackdaw, Jay, Starling, Magpie, Chaffinch, Bullfinch, Siskin and Hawfinch. How to Rear them in Sickness and in Health.

London 1861

The song-thrush, Its powers of imitation

…If you wish to teach a thrush to “pipe”, you must begin as soon as he is fledged, taking care even that during the first few weeks of his life he is not allowed to hear the voice of one of his own species; for, if he at once acquires his natural note, you will find considerable difficulty in making him discard it for the sake of your artificial music. A flute, or an ordinary tin whistle, is the best instrument with which to teach the thrush. You need not, however, as in the case of the bullfinch, blackbird, and some others, rise at daybreak to give your pupil his lesson; a bright warm afternoon will do very well, only it will be as well to cover up the cage, so as totally to exclude the light, for an hour before you begin.

Some thrushes possess imitative powers to a marvellous degree; tunes played on wind instruments, or whistled by the mouth, they will catch up and learn with a precision that is astounding. I have read and been told many stories, some ludicrous, some grave, concerning this faculty of the thrush; but the most curious and interesting is the following, furnished me by a friend at Manchester, a person on whose veracity I can rely.

There lived, on the skirts of the city, a thriving woodchopper; he had a capital business, employed several hands, and his workshop adjoined his dwelling-house. He was a particularly cheerful man, and from morning till night the din made by his chopper, and by the choppers of his boys, was rivalled by his incessant singing and whistling. Well, one day, in spite of his thriving business, in spite of his cheerfulness and singing and whistling, the wood-chopper committed suicide. To the surprise and dismay of his wife and his workmen, he was found hanged to a beam.

The woodchopper’s wife was a woman of business; therefore, after having her husband’s body removed to the house, and allowing the workpeople an hour or two to discuss the calamity, she set them to work again. It was a sultry summer afternoon, and, what with the heat, and the sight of the ugly beam, and the thought as to what had so shortly before been hanging there, the choppers rose and fell very languidly indeed, and the men and boys spoke to each other in whispers. Suddenly every mouth was ajar with terror, all the hair in the wood-shed rose on the heads of its owners, for, pealing through the place, was heard the familiar tune “William at the Garden Gate”, in the unmistakeable whistle of the dead wood-chopper! The men and boys rushed from the place, and went and told the widow; they then returned all together, and, just putting their heads inside the door, listened. With the exception of blocks, and choppers, and billets, the shed was empty; still, from invisible lips, issued “WATGG”, clear, shrill, unearthly! Neither for love nor money would man or boy venture within the shed to split another billet.

The place was haunted. Sometimes the most profound silence would reign in the shed for hours, and then would come a sudden burst of the ghostly whistling, scaring away listeners from chinks and keyholes. The widow advertised the business, but no man was found bold enough to buy it. So passed on three months, and the power woman was fairly on the road to ruin. One day, however, while seated at her window, she saw a bird fly from the neighbouring copse, alight on the roof of the deserted wood-shed, and immediately pipe up the now dreaded tune. Thus the mystery was cleared up. It was a thrush, who, attracted by the wood-chopper’s music, had listened until he had learned it, and, proud of the accomplishment, returned to the same spot every day to publish his scholarship.

How to teach the blackbird

The blackbird will learn any easy tune that is played to him on a flute or other wind instrument, and whistle it accurately. If, however, you wish to give him this sort of education, you must prepare yourself for some little trouble.  You must begin with the bird when he is two months old, and give him a lesson, all alone in a room, in the dusk of the evening and at daybreak in the morning. Some birds learn better while their bellies are empty, but the blackbird will not stand this treatment. Give him a moderate breakfast or supper, and then before you begin the lesson hang in his sight a lively worm. This is to be a reward for good behaviour. Then slowly and distinctly play a few bars of the air you wish the bird to learn. He will pay great attention while you are playing, with his head on one side and both ears evidently wide open. After you have repeated the lesson, say twenty times, leave off, and keep quiet, giving the bird an opportunity to try the air if he has a mind. If he should attempt it, instantly give him the worm, caressing him and making a great fuss all the while. Do not fear but that a few days he will understand all about the worm, will look out for it, and do his best to earn it.

When a blackbird once learns a tune, he never forgets it nor any part of it. I once knew a bird that could whistle “Polly Hopkins” with wonderful accuracy. His owner sold him, at the same time making the purchaser acquainted with the bird’s favourite tune. As soon as the gentleman got him at home he at once hung up the blackbird, and, going to the piano, struck up “Polly Hopkins”. The bird’s new master, however, introduced parts into the tune that he had never heard before; so, after listening awhile, he began hissing, fluttering his wings, and otherwise signifying his distaste of the entire performance. Much surprised, the gentleman left off playing, and then the blackbird opened his throat, and favoured his new master with his version of “Polly Hopkins”, nor would he listen with patience to any other version.

The same blackbird, after staying in the service of the above-mentioned gentleman for two years, was adopted by a serious family, where “Polly Hopkins” and all such profanity was sedulously avoided. Whenever poor “Joe” (the blackbird’s name) attempted to strike up the old tune, a cloth was thrown over his cage, and he was silenced. The family consisted of an old lady and her two daughters, and every night, at seven o’clock, prayers were read and the “Evening Hymn” sung, and Joe, who was an obedient bird, and anxious to conform to the habits of the house, speedily learned the tune, and regularly whistled it while the old lady and her daughters sang it. This went on for six or seven years, when the mother died, and the daughters separated, and Joe, now an aged blackbird, fell into new hands; but to his dying day he never gave up the “Evening Hymn.” Punctually as the clock struck seven he tuned up, and went straight through with it with the gravity of a parish clerk.

The polylogistic powers of blackbird are such that it can imitate almost every inhabitant of the farmyard,–the gobble of the turkey, the crowing of the dunghill cock, and the “cluck” of the hen to her chicks. Some naturalists even go so far as to assert that it may be taught to utter words; but it would require evidence of my own ears to induce me to give credence to that assertion.

The mocking bird

…The Mexican name for this little creature is “the bird of four hundred tongues”. “In extent and variety of its vocal powers,” says Wilson, “the mocking-bird stands unrivalled by the whole feathered songsters of this or perhaps any other country. ….The ease, elegance, and rapidity of his movements, the animation of his eye, and the intelligence he displays in listening to and laying up lessons from almost any other species of the feathered creation within his hearing are really surprising, and mark the peculiarity of his genius. To these qualities we may add that of a voice full, strong, and musical, and capable of almost every modulation, from the clear and mellow tone of the wood-thrush to the savage scream of the bald eagle. In measure and accent he faithfully follows his originals; in force and sweetness of expression he greatly improves upon them. In his native groves, mounted on top of a tall bush or half-grown tree in the dawn of the dewy morning, while the woods are already vocal with a multitude of warblers, his admirable song rises pre-eminent over every competitor.”

Nothing comes amiss to the mocking bird, the bark of a dog, the tremulous quavering of the canary, the creak of a wheel-barrow, or the soft-cooing of a wood-pigeon. Southey well describes the marvellous bird :—

That cheerful one who knoweth all
The songs of all the winged choristers
And in one sequence of melodious sounds
Pours all its music.

In a domesticated condition, however, the mocking-bird’s chief characteristic renders it impossible that he should be regarded as a sober chamber musician. For awhile he will be content with his own natural melody, which consists of from two to six short full notes, but the least noise is sufficient to disturb the flow of his natural melody, and one suggestion giving rise to another, you presently hear a Babel of bird music almost impossible to bear. “His imitations of a brown-thrush”, says a well-known naturalist, “are frequently interrupted by the crowing of cocks: the exquisite warblings of the blue-bird are by no means improved by the screaming of swallows or the cackling of hens; the shrill reiterations of the whip-poor-will are introduced into the simple melody of the robin. The uninitiated look round for the original, and then find that what appeared to be the product of a number of performers is really that of a single bird before us.”