Michael Davitt's Blackbird.
Each animal or bird lover has his or her particular devotion to a certain species. One l person will have no other dog but a foxterrier. Another no other bird but a bull- ' finch. Mr Davitt insists that the most intelligent bird in the world is a blackbird. But T am inclined to believe that the animal intelligence depends on the time and trouble given to its development. To know Mr Davitt, his great courage, his unusual sympathy and absolute manliness, and then to realise that this man so full of enthusiasm and interest in his fellow man depended solely in his terrible prison life for affection and companionship upon a bird makes one's heart ache and one's eyes fill with tears, even i though that horrible time has passed. I sat next Mr Davitt at dinner, and confided to him my anxiety about my bullfinch ; it was j one of his worst daj's. " Are you a great lover of birds? " asked Mr Davitt. " Yes, I love all animals." " Then you should have a blackbird. They are the most intelligent of all the birds." " Did you ever have one? " " Yes. When in prison a dear litle fellow was my only companion for a long while. One morning when walking in the infirmary giounds a- baby blackbird tumbled down out of its nest at my very feet. I asked the governor permission to keep him, and he gave it. Shortly after my only occupation was the education of this blackbird." " And what could he do? " " Oh, all sorts of things ! His cage door, unlike mine, was always open, and at 4 o'clock in the morning lie fluttered down on my breast. The day had begun." " The world of blackbirds will have a new interest for me aiter this." Mr Davitt smiled. "I used to throw little bits of paper for him to the end of the cell, and he would run along and pick up the paper in his beak, and bring it back and lay it on my knee, looking up with his bright eyes and ( asking me to throAv it again. I had no paper to write with, but was allowed a | slate and pencil. To see the white marks appearing on. the slate never ceased to interest him. Perhaps he could read, -for j he would look over my shoulder for hours. [ At any rate, when I put the pencil in my j waistcoat pocket he hunted for it with his bill, and hand it to me, asking me to write again." "Did he whistle?" " Oh, yes ; we had long hours of practice." "And what did he learn?" " ' The wearing of the green,' of course, and very beautifully he sang it." "And what became of him?" "I gave him his liberty." "When you got yours?" " Oh, no," Mr Davitt answered, with a sigh, "long, long before that; at "least I gave him a chance, and he took it." " But that was very ungrateful of him." " No, no ; he couldn't be stronger than Nature. He loved me, but he was only a wild bird — abird of the woods after all." "And how did it happen?" -" Well, one day we two poor prisoners were restless. He more than I, for tlife ether blackbirds called him continually, while I seemed to be forgotten. So when I went out for exercise I took him with me, and opening the door of the cage I waited There are few times in my life when my heart has palpitated more suffocatingly than then." " Well?" "He darted through the open door with a perfect scream of delight, and I went back to my cell alone. And wept." — Sunday-school Teacher : " What lesson are we to learn from the .story of Jonah and the whale?" pupil: "To stay on dry land."
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW18980922.2.180
Bibliographic details
Otago Witness, Issue 2325, 22 September 1898, Page 54
Word Count
637Michael Davitt's Blackbird. Otago Witness, Issue 2325, 22 September 1898, Page 54
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