Bird Woman

“ Take away your restrictions, open all doors, leave women at liberty to go where they will. The caged bird forgets how to build its nest. The wing of the eagle is as strong to soar to the sun as that of her mate, who never says to her, "back, feeble one, to your nest, and there brood in dull inactivity until I give you permission to leave!" ”

“ Be that as it may, the fact is well remembered that a ring, bearing the device of a bird upon it, or any other object having the image of the feathered kind, was not considered a suitable gift to a woman. That article of superstition, like some others that could be mentioned, has vanished before the resistless command of fashion, so completely indeed, that birds of every known clime and plumage have since been considered the really proper adornment for woman’s headgear. ”

“ Those gray moths with wings that fold back like big flies, and they appear as if they had been carved from old wood. Then, when they fly, the lower wings flash out and they are red and black, or gold and black, or pink and black, or dozens of bright, beautiful colours combined with black. No one ever has classified all of them and written their complete history, unless the Bird Woman is doing it now. She wants everything she can get about them. ”

“ On the margin of this circus there is invariably a projecting branch or high arched rest, at a few feet elevation from the ground on which the female bird takes its place, while in the ring the male—the male bird alone possesses great decoration—shows off all its magnificence for the gratification and pleasure of his consort, and to exalt himself in her eyes."
In this picture we have all the characteristic features of the display of personal beauty in which many birds delight. Any one may see such performances for themselves. ”

“ But she, when she had come to the palace, and the white bird asked her to become his wife, with the promise of restoring her goat in case of her consent, answered him, "As a rule, creatures of the male gender keep their promises; therefore, O bird! I accept thy conditions." Thus she agreed to become his wife.
One day there was to be a great gathering, lasting thirteen days, in a temple in the neighbourhood. And when all the people were assembled together, it was found that it was just this woman, the wife of the white bird, who was more comely than all the other women. ”

“ I had a bird-loving friend from the West visiting me, and took her to Prospect Park, Brooklyn, to see our birds. She pointed out several, and so interested me in their lives that from that day I began to study them, especially the wood-thrush and catbird. After I had studied them for two years, I wrote what I had seen. From that time my course has seemed marked out for me, and my whole time has been given to this one theme. I think every woman over forty-five ought to take up a fad; they would be much happier and better off. ”

“ This name of the Silver-Spinner, however, though often in Germany, Scandinavia, and our own country associated with the poetic legend alluded to, is really a romantic derivative from the ancient connection of the small owl with the Maiden Maid goddess who presided over spinning as one of her foremost womanly attributes. ‘The Woman’s Bird,’ as the small owl is sometimes called, deserves the name, for in almost every language ancient and modern, except English and Finnish, its name is feminine. ”

“ And behold, a black bird flew down upon that white she-bird and fell to billing her pigeon-fashion, then he leapt on her and trod her three consecutive times, after which the bird changed and became a woman. Badr looked at her and lo! it was Queen Lab. So he knew that the black bird was a man transmewed and that she was enamoured of him and had transformed herself into a bird, that he might enjoy her ”

“ Even among birds, where the sex instincts have attained to their highest and most æsthetic expression, we find some large families—as, for example, the hawks—in which the female is usually the larger and finer bird. [34] Thus the adult male of the common sparrow-hawk is much smaller than the female, the length of the male being 13 ins., wing 7.7 ins., and that of the female 15.4 ins., wing 9 ins. ”

“ Even the robin and the martin come back, year after year, to their old nests; shall a woman be less true hearted than a bird? ”

“ No harm would I do thee, no foeman is near,
I only would gaze on thy beauties so dear,
Those beautiful winglets beside thee.
Lady-bird! lady-bird! fly away home!
Thy house is a-fire, thy children will roam,
List! list to their cry and bewailing!
The pitiless spider is weaving their doom,
Then lady-bird! lady-bird! fly away home! ”

“ On the whole, there seems to be a system of Women's Rights prevailing among the birds, which contemplated from the standpoint of the male, is quite admirable. In almost all cases of joint interest, the female bird is the most active. She determines the site of the nest, and is usually the most absorbed in its construction. ”

“ We sometimes hear our women, in their moments of tenderness for a distant person, or in their impatience to go where their heart calls them, or in their curiosity to know what is going on at such a moment in such a place, say, "I wish I could become a bird to go there." ”

“ She looks fondly up at him, and, raising her bill to his, as though beseeching a kiss, just touches with it, in raising, the feathers of the throat—an action light, but full of endearment. And in every way she shows herself the most desirous, and, in fact, so worries and pesters the poor male gull that often, to avoid her importunities, he flies away. This may seem odd, but I have seen other instances of it. No doubt, in actual courting, before the sexes are paired, the male bird is usually the most eager, but after marriage the female often becomes the wooer. ”

“ In a vast number of cases, however, the cries of the two sexes during the love-season are known to be the same. They may not always, when this is the case, be either very wonderful or very beautiful, but to suppose that the nuptial actions and notes of male birds are intended to attract and charm the female only when they are of a very pronounced and extraordinary character, or very musical, would not be logical. ”

“ And at what other time does he go through those extraordinary, what one might call, gestures to the female; he does all he can to speak? At times, when he twists his neck round and turns his head upward, he appears to be imploring heaven to help him.
I could mention many similar cases, but these, I think, are sufficient to prove that the whole powers of the bird's body and mind are concentrated solely on the possession of a female. This being so, it appears to me to be highly improbable that this action can in any way refer directly to the construction of the nest. ”

“ Only a pigeon, maimed beyond hope of recovery, could she be sure of compelling to be hers for all time, tied to her by its helpless infirmity, too suffering and disfigured to be lured from its captivity. And so, in accordance with her philosophy of life, the widow, by a blow in the pit of the stomach with a knuckle-duster, was to bring down her bird which henceforth would be tended and cared for by "the Charmer" to her own satisfaction and the admiration of all beholders. ”

“ It was Honey who whistled and called. It was Lulu who twittered and trilled. No mating male bird could have put more of entreating tenderness into his voice. No mating female bird could have answered with more perplexity of abandon. ”

“ Why should she never exercise her critical faculty except as between such males as are rivals for her favour? If, for instance, she is courted by two or more males, why should she not declare in favour of a third or fourth that is either indifferent or courting another hen, on the ground of his superior beauty alone?
Why, in fact, should it not be with birds as it is with men and women? Women, to casual observation, seem at least as coy and modest as do hen birds, in whom, however, there can be no idea of modesty. ”

“ Then the female birds, who only wished to be loved for themselves and not for what they looked like, gave all their beauty to their beautiful husbands, and remained without any. So now, of course, the male birds were twice as beautiful as they had been before, whilst the poor hens were not beautiful at all, and would even have been quite ugly if they had not been birds, for a bird cannot be ugly. ”

“ Indeed, I never knew a female bird of any kind that did not appear utterly indifferent to the charms of voice and plumage that the male birds are so fond of displaying. But I am inclined to believe that the males think only of themselves and of outshining each other, and not at all of the approbation of their mates, as, in an analogous case in a higher species, it is well known whom the females dress for, and whom they want to kill with envy! ”

“ When the nightingale warbles passionately and the mocking bird gurgles provokingly, when the robin fills its scarlet breast and the starling floats in ecstasy through the perfumed air, when the pigeon coyly woos its mate, and the butterfly flirts with the dazzling multicolors of its wings, when all the marvelous devices of sex attraction in nature, selection and courting, mating and reproducing are pondered, who but must wonder at the infinite possibilities of reaction of the sex hormones? ”

“ The dew's falling fast, and your fine speckled wings
⁠Will be moisten'd and wet with the close-clinging damp.
O Lady-bird, Lady-bird, fly away home!
⁠The sweet little fairy bells tinkle afar;
Make haste, or they'll catch you and harness you fast
⁠With a gossamer cobweb to Oberon's car. ”

“ The nuptial cries or notes of birds are a chief way in which the one sex, on the theory of sexual selection, endeavours to render itself pleasing to the other. When these charm our own ears to an extent which we think deserving of the name of song, it is usually the male alone that utters them, those uttered by the female not rising to the height of such a definition. ”

“ The remainder of her toilet, which altogether took over three hours, was performed in private, and when she reappeared she looked as if a very unmeaning- looking wooden doll had been dressed up with the exquisite good taste, harmony, and quietness which characterise the dress of Japanese women.
A most rigid social etiquette draws an impassable line of demarcation between the costume of the virtuous woman in every rank and that of her frail sister. ”

“ Green. "There he is on that oleander, and there's his mate still busy with her household duties, carrying straw for her nest. It must be hard to be a female bird and not to be able to pour forth your soul in song, no matter how bursting you are with the joy of living. I always thought that it was unfair. No doubt that little newlywed mocking-bird feels as deeply as the male, but all she can do to show it is just drag straw and hairs and build and build, and then sit patiently on her eggs, and then teach the little ones to fly after she has worn herself to skin and bone grubbing worms for them. ”

“ But when one afterwards sees two birds at the nest—male and female beyond a doubt—mutually or alternately performing some portion of these antics, though without the primary prostration, [13] what is one to think then? In such cases as these, where the sexes are not to be distinguished except by dissection, or having the bird in one's hands, we cannot be sure that it is always the male we see displaying to the female, and never the female to the male. ”

“ THE WHITE BIRD'S WIFE
Many, many years ago, when the world was young, there lived in a country very fair and full of flowers an old man who had three daughters. They were simple, humble folk and owned little save a herd of goats, and these were dearer to the old man than anything else in the world, dearer even than his three fine daughters. Every day one of the girls went forth with the flock and tended them upon the hillside, and woe be to her if, when she returned at night, one of the little beasts was hurt or missing! ”

“ From the Duchessa dell'Aquila Fulva, Roches Noires, Trouville, to the Principe di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset.
'Piero Mio,—In marriage, the male bird is always wanting to get out when the female bird does not want him to get out; also, she is for ever tightening the wires over his head, and declaring that nothing can be more delightful than the perch which she sits on herself. Come to us here. There are any quantities of birds here who ought to be in their cages, but are not, and manage to enjoy themselves quand même. If only you had married Nicoletta! ”

“ The mother does so too, and then both birds, standing together side by side over the chick, pay it divided attentions, seeming as though they could not make enough either of their child or each other. It is a pretty picture, and here is another one. "A bird—we will think her the female, as she performs the most mother-like part—has just flown in with a fish—a sand-eel—in her bill. She makes her way with it to the partner, who rises and shifts the chick that he has been brooding over from himself to her. ”

“ Here, then, in the female bird we see developed in a remarkable degree the power of discrimination, the exercise of taste, a sense of beauty, and the ability to choose—qualities which the facts brought forward by scientists show conclusively to have been acquired by the female and by her transmitted to her offspring. ”

“ When the husband questions every turn, every move, every cent, the wife feels like a prisoner or a slave. Wives will do good [Pg 204] team work when they are broken to double harness with their husbands.
Women are generally raised without any requirements of economy; they are pretty birds, and used to preening and smoothing their plumage and looking pretty.
It's the female instinct in the human. In the animal world the male has the plumage and does the strutting and fascinating act; but in the human animal the female is the bird with the bright plumage. ”

“ Have you ever been witness of the wooing of that half-knightly, half-boorish bird, the yellow-hammer? In the grove near my house several pairs of these birds had a great time one spring settling their hymeneal affairs. For hours a lover would pursue the object of his affections around and around, never giving her a moment’s respite. No sooner had she gone bounding to another tree than he would dash after, often flinging himself recklessly right upon the spot where she had alighted, compelling her to hitch away, to avoid being struck by her impetuous lover. ”