Birds and All Nature, Vol. 5, No. 1, January 1899: Illustrated by Color PhotographyVarious
History
Birds and All Nature, Vol. 5, No. 1, January 1899: Illustrated by Color Photography
Various
Birds -- Periodicals; Natural history -- Periodicals
Little Billee is very fond of little orange blossom biscuits. I keep
some in a tin box under a table by the side of my bed. For several days
every time I would reach out of bed and tap on the box Little Billee
would come running for a piece. One day I was visiting with a friend
and we forgot all about the bird. Soon we heard rap, tap, tap, pop,
pop, pop, and there was Little Billee standing by the box waiting for a
piece. Since then he comes many times a day. If I send him away with a
small piece he returns directly for a large one.
I had quite a time teaching him to stay in his cage. The first day I
put him in I was afraid he would die of fright. I left the cage on the
floor for two days before he ventured in. After he had been going in
and out for some time, I closed the door, but he was frightened quite
as much as at first, and he would not go near the cage the rest of the
day. Finally I tried taking the cage on my lap and shutting him in; he
did not seem afraid then and now he does not mind being shut up in the
morning when I am in my dressing-room, but he much prefers going in
and out at his own sweet will. If I leave him shut up in his cage and
go back to bed, he is frantic until he is let out and gets in the bed
with me. For the first two weeks he was not happy if he was not on me
somewhere. He would stay in bed with me for hours at a time, but now
he plays on the floor, with a little piece of paper, cotton, or ribbon,
and eats his seeds and biscuit.
I dress my hair high and it is Little Billee's special delight to sit
on the top of my twist while I walk about my room. During the first
few weeks if I put him on the floor when he had been in bed with me,
he would hop back and forth on the rug in front of my bed, and beg to
be taken, or he would fly straight up. I would put down my hand, he
would hop upon my finger and in a second be back inside the bed. If I
was sitting in a chair and put him down on the floor, he would climb
right up from my feet to my neck, put his little bill in my mouth and
chirp with glee. One day he was on the floor and did not see me go back
to bed, but saw my wrapper over a chair (which stood about a yard from
my bed). He supposed I was inside of it, but when he reached the top
and found no mouth to put his bill into, he gave several very mournful
peeps, but as soon as I spoke to him he chirped and it did not take him
long to fly over to me. The next day when I put him down on the floor
I was anxious to see what he would do. After teasing for some time for
me to take him, he went to a chair, climbed up on the wrapper until he
reached the top, then flew over to me. Ever after he came that way when
I refused to take him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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