第一部 第二章　彩虹鴿接受教育

PART ONE Chapter Two Education of Gay-Neck

There are two sweet sights in the bird world: one when the mother breaks open her egg in order to bring to light her child, and the other when she broods and feeds him. Gay-Neck was brooded most affectionately by both his parents. This brooding did for him what cuddling does for human children. It gives the helpless ones warmth and happiness. It is as necessary to them as food. This is the time when a pigeon-hole should not be stuffed with too much cotton or flannel, which should be put there more and more sparingly so that the temperature of the nest does not get too hot. Ignorant pigeon fanciers do not realize that as the baby grows larger he puts forth more and more heat from his own body. And I think it is wise not to clean the nest frequently during this time. Everything that the parents allow to remain in the nest contributes to making their baby comfortable and happy.

I remember distinctly how, from the second day of his birth, little Gay-Neck automatically opened his beak and expanded his carnation-coloured body like a bellows every time one of his parents flew back to their nest. The father or the mother put their beaks into his wide-open maw and poured into it the milk made in their own organs from millet seeds that they had eaten. I noticed this; the food that was poured into his mouth was very soft. No pigeon ever gives any seeds to its baby even when it is nearly a month old without first keeping them in its throat for some time, which softens the food before it enters the delicate stomach of the baby.

Our Gay-Neck was a tremendous eater. He kept one of his parents busy getting food while the other brooded or stayed with him. I think the father bird brooded and worked for him no less hard than the mother. No wonder his body grew very fat. His carnation colour changed into a yellowish-white—the first sign of feathers coming on. Then that gave way to prickly white feathers, round and somewhat stiff, like a porcupine needle. The yellow things that hung about his mouth and eyes fell away. Slowly the beak emerged, firm, sharp and long. What a powerful jaw! When he was about three weeks old, an ant was crawling past him into the pigeon hole at whose entrance he was sitting. Without any instruction from anybody he struck it with his beak. Where there had been a whole ant now lay its two halves. He brought his nose down to the dead ant and examined what he had done. There was no doubt that he had taken that black ant for a seed, and killed an innocent passer-by who was friendly to his race. Let us hope he was ashamed of it. Anyway, he never killed another ant the rest of his life.

By the time he was five weeks old he could hop out of his birth nest and take a drink from the pan of water left near the pigeon holes. Even now he had to be fed by his parents, though every day he tried to get food on his own account. He would sit on my wrist and dig up a seed at a time from the palm of my hand. He juggled it two or three times in his throat like a juggler throwing up balls in the air, and swallowed it. Every time Gay-neck did that, he turned his head and looked into my eyes as much as to say: "Am I not doing it well? You must tell my parents how clever I am when they come down from sunning themselves on the roof." All the same, he was the slowest of my pigeons in developing his powers.

Just at this time I made a discovery. I never knew before how pigeons could fly in a dust-storm without going blind. But as I watched the ever-growing Gay-Neck, I noticed one day that a film was drawn over his eyes. I thought he was losing his sight. In my consternation I put forth my hand to draw him nearer to my face in order to examine him closely. No sooner had I made the gesture than he opened his golden eyes and receded into the rear of the hole. But just the same I caught him and took him up on the roof, and in the burning sunlight of May I scrutinized his eyelids. Yes, there it was: he had, attached to his eyelid, another thin lid as delicate as tissue paper, and every time I put his face toward the sun he drew that film over the two orbits of gold. And so I learned that it was a protective film for the eye that enabled the bird to fly in a dust-storm or straight toward the sun.

In another fortnight Gay-Neck was taught how to fly. It was not at all easy, bird though he was by birth. A human child may love the water, yet he has to make mistakes and swallow water while learning the art of swimming. Similarly with my pigeon. He had a mild distrust of opening his wings, and for hours he sat on our roof, where the winds of the sky blew without quickening him to flight. In order to make the situation clear, let me describe our roof to you. It was railed with a solid concrete wall as high as a boy of fourteen. That prevented even a sleep-walker from slipping off the height of four stories on summer nights, when most of us slept on the roof.

Gay-Neck I put on that concrete wall every day. There he sat for hours at a time, facing the wind, but that was all. One day I put some peanuts on the roof and called him to hop down and get them. He looked at me with an inquiring eye for a few moments. Turning from me, he looked down again at the peanuts. He repeated this process several times. When at last he was convinced that I was not going to bring these delicious morsels up for him to eat, he began to walk up and down the railing, craning his neck occasionally towards the peanuts about three feet below. At last, after fifteen minutes of heart-breaking hesitancy, he hopped down. Just as his feet struck the floor, his wings, hitherto unopened, suddenly spread themselves out full sail as he balanced himself over the nuts. What a triumph!

About this time I noticed the change of colours on his feathers. Instead of a nondescript grey-blue, a glossy aquamarine glowed all over him. And suddenly one morning in the sunlight his throat glistened like iridescent beads.

Now came the supreme question of flight. I waited for his parents to teach him the first lessons, though I helped the only way I could. Every day for a few minutes I made him perch on my wrist; then I would swing my arm up and down many times, and in order to balance himself on such a difficult perch he had to shut and open his wings frequently. That was good for him, but there ended my part of the teaching. You may ask me the reason of my hurrying matters so. He was already behind in his flying lessons, and in June the rains begin to fall in India; and with the approach of the rainy season any long flight becomes impossible. I wished to train him in learning his directions as soon as I could.

However, one day long before the end of May, his father undertook the task. This particular day a brisk north wind, which had been sweeping about and cooling the atmosphere of the city, had just died down. The sky was as clear as a limpid sapphire. The spaces were so clear that you could see the house-tops of our town, then the fields and arbours of the country in the farthest distance. About three o'clock in the afternoon, Gay-Neck was sunning himself on the concrete wall of the roof. His father, who had been flying about in the air, came down and perched next to him. He looked at his son with a queer glance, as much as to say: "Here, lazy-bones, you are nearly three months old, yet you do not dare to fly. Are you a pigeon or an earthworm?" But Gay-Neck, the soul of dignity, made no answer. That exasperated his father, who began to coo and boom at him in pigeon-language. In order to get away from that volubility, Gay-Neck moved; but his father followed, cooing, booming and banging his wings. Gay-Neck went on removing himself farther and farther; and the old fellow, instead of relenting, redoubled his talk, and pursued. At last the father pushed him so close to the edge that Gay-Neck had only one alternative, that is, to slip off the roof. Suddenly his father thrust upon his young body all the weight of his old frame. Gay-Neck slipped. Hardly had he fallen half a foot when he opened his wings, and flew. Oh, what an exhilarating moment for all concerned! His mother, who was downstairs dipping herself in the water, and performing her afternoon toilet, came up through the staircase and flew to keep her son company. They circled above the roof for at least ten minutes before they came down to perch. When they reached the roof the mother folded her wings as a matter of course, and sat still. Not so the son: he was in a panic, like a boy walking into cold and deep water. His whole body shook, and his feet trod the roof gingerly as he alighted, skating over it furiously and flapping his wings in order to balance himself. At last he stopped, as his chest struck the side of the wall, and he folded his wings as swiftly as we shut a fan. Gay-Neck was panting with excitement, while his mother rubbed him and placed her chest against him as if he were a mere baby who badly needed brooding. Seeing that his task had been done successfully, Gay-Neck's father went down to take his bath.