I have seen that she showed real discrimination as to insects. Ants, flies and occasional mosquitoes were her preferences. If I moved the stump, exposing grubs underneath, she would start toward them, but would stop about three feet from them, knowing they were not good to eat. She would get away from a wasp as fast as possible, but I watched her catch two honeybees. In each case the bee was on a geranium blossom, and Robert attacked it tail-end first. In each case she ate the soft body part, leaving the rest.
If I saw a spider before she did, a few quick taps on the ground brought her running at full speed. Sometimes I would see a little spider high on a wall or on a ceiling. Since the ceilings in these old Cape Cod houses are low, I could always hold her up and she would get it in one quick flash. A friend once brought her an angleworm, which I thought she would like. But she would have none of it. I tried her on angleworms several times, to no avail. However, she did relish small inchworms.
She was equally discriminating about her bath. I did not know that quail never bathe in water. They want dirt. One of Robert’s admirers thought she ought to have a sandbox, and went to a great deal of trouble to get sand. Someone told her that it should not be seashore sand, because of the salt. So she tried without success to wash and rewash some sand till it was free of salt. It didn’t work. One day she saw a lovely pile of clean Sand where some construction work was going on, and begged a shoeboxful of it. We fixed it up in a flat wooden box, and it looked most enticing—to me. Robert, always curious about anything new, walked into it, scratched a time or two and then walked off, completely uninterested. She wanted dirt. And she wanted dirt which was slightly damp. Her choice was dirt in the geranium bed, soft on top and a bit damp as she worked down into it.
The bath technique never varied. With just her feet, she first loosened up the soil until she had a little hollow. Then, with the loose dirt around her, she went to work to throw it all over herself. She would work first with her head, which she put down so that the side of her face was in the dirt, throwing it back and over her, first on one side and then on the other. When she was in a little deeper, the wing work began. How she could make it fly with those wings, working from one side and the other. In a short while she would have a hole large enough to accommodate almost her entire body; also, by this time she was beginning to get tired. She then would lie on her side, making little convulsive, jerky motions, and the last stage of the process was to push with both feet against the side of the hole, seeming to be rubbing her back against the opposite side. Then came the most amazing part of it all. If I had not seen it before seeing it at my home, I would have been terrified. But after she had had enough, she would stand up and actually stagger out onto the grass. She looked and acted like a drunken person; she would fall from side to side, get up, fall again, until she regained her equilibrium or perhaps until she was rested. Then—watch out! Then came the shaking. I learned to wait until she had shaken three times before disturbing her or taking her indoors. I made a big mistake one day when a sudden shower came up while she was in the staggering stage: I hurriedly took her in and put her on the drop-leaf table, both of whose leaves were open at the time, fortunately. Well! Such a mess as I had! She shook, and shook twice more. Then I went to work. I brushed the dirt into a little heap on the table, and by actual measurement I took up two tablespoonsful of it. How much more there was on the floor, on the windowsill and on me, I do not know. But there was a lot. It was my own fault, so I cleaned it up uncomplainingly.
Tommy had told me that after a bath, especially if it were the least bit cool, she wanted to be held. This I had to learn for myself, as I had been inclined to discount it a bit. She made her desire known at such times by backing up and pushing against my ankle, talking all the time until I picked her up. She would cuddle in my lap, with both my hands around her so that just her head showed, and there she would stay for about ten minutes. She even shivered a little at first. Once warm and rested, she was off about her business.
Her fear of birds never failed to arouse my sympathy. If any bird, even a little chickadee, flew over the patio, no matter how high above the top it might be, she gave a little cry, fluffed up and flattened herself against the grass. If she were near enough to a geranium to dart under it, she did so. She never got over this fear. When I was studying advanced psychology in college and university, so-called “experts” were casting doubts on instinct. If I had accepted the idea then—which I did not—I certainly would have rejected it now. What else could this fear have been but the instinctive fear of the hawk? I understand that mother quails have been seen and heard warning their brood that a hawk is overhead. At such time the babies scurry into underbrush and the mother flattens and “freezes.” But Robert never had such parental instruction.
What would you call it, if not “instinct”? And what told her that an earwig, ugly, repulsive-looking insects as they are, must not be eaten? Something told her. What made her turn away from her little glass of orange juice, without even dipping her bill in it, when it was the least bit soured? When she did this I often picked up the glass and smelled it. There was no odor as far as I could detect. If I tasted it, I always found that it was a tiny bit rancid. When offered fresh juice, she drank lustily. One morning I forgot to replace the little glass with a fresh one. She went to it several times, until finally I caught on and got a fresh one. At once she took sixteen swallows as though she could never get enough. She did not take a mouthful then hold her head back to let it run down, as a chicken does. She took perhaps three dips, waited a second or two, then swallowed audibly.
Had she been larger and a bit ferocious-looking, she would have made a good watchdog. I could be engrossed in a book and know at once from her really loud calls that a car had turned in my driveway.
Except for the flying birds overhead, she seemed to feel completely secure in her enclosure. One day when I was sitting outside with her, buried in a book, my back to the wire because of the sun, I became aware that she was clucking in a tone rather like that she used when she had found a good spider, but with more to it. I turned, and to my horror there she was, walking back and forth along her side of the wire, while safely on the other side sat not one, not two, but three CATS. One was flattened out with tail twitching, but the others were just sitting with their noses almost touching the wire. I saw at once that there Robert was in no danger. One cat even put a paw tentatively through the mesh of the wire, disturbing Robert not at all. She had no instinctive fear of four-legged animals.
As a matter of fact, she made friends with a dear little white French poodle who used to come almost every day with his mistress. I knew him well and he knew me and the house. We kept him on the leash all the time for the first week or so, but soon found out that Robert was not afraid of him and that he was merely interested in her because she moved. Occasionally she would snuggle up beside him and stay there until he reached around and gently nudged her, wanting her to move.
Toward the end of her stay with me, Robert developed an amusing game with the poodle. By that time he had lost all interest in her, moving or not, and since he was an old dog he would settle down and go to sleep. He was most often in a spatchcock position, front legs stretched out before him and hind legs stretched out behind, lying on his stomach. By now she had assumed the role of the aggressor. Stalking around in back of him, with neck outstretched, she would get close to his rear end, select one white curl of his hair, then like a flash grab it and give it a yank. That always galvanized Jackie, who leapt into the air, while Robert would retire delightedly, only to repeat the performance later. I wish I had more and better pictures of the two of them together, but as any photographer will tell you, it is very difficult to get the animal pictures you want. Later, Robert developed into a regular ham before a camera, apparently liking even flashbulbs.
One event in her relations with animals is so incredible that I almost hesitate to record it. All I can say is that it is true in every detail. She was out one day with Tommy and Mildre
d while the doctor was weeding in their patio garden. Suddenly a little rabbit, perhaps one-fourth grown, hopped into view. Robert took off after him with the Kienzles following as best they could. She chased that poor little animal until it was so exhausted that it just collapsed, at which point Robert settled down right up against its warm fur. Finally Mildred tapped on the ground and she came running to see what tidbit might be forthcoming, and was taken back into the house.
Her fear of birds did not extend to birds on the ground. Once in a while even when I was sitting quietly in the patio, a little sparrow would come in through the wire to get some of the wild-bird seed that was always there. At such times Robert was not at all disturbed and I have seen the two of them eating contentedly.
9
CALLERS
CALLERS! As I said earlier, it certainly is fortunate that I had no forewarning of the people who would come to my house. I was blissfully ignorant on that August 9. Never, as long as I remember anything, will I forget our first Sunday together. Word had spread that Robert was with me. On that Sunday we had nineteen callers. Once there were seven people at once. Not once did Robert let me down. We all want children to appear at their best before company, and we all know they don’t always do it. But Robert cooperated unfailingly.
She couldn’t manage sunflower seeds: I understand no quail can. She was passionately fond of them if they were cracked for her and the meat taken out. She would almost dance in front of me when I was cracking them for her. I always kept a few on hand all picked out for her. Everyone who came was entranced with her and, of course, each one wanted to feed her. I gave each person a sunflower meat or two, showed them how to tap on the floor to see her come running, and how to hold it a bit above her head to make her stretch up to get it. She was at her most beguiling, but I learned that day that she could have too many sunflower seeds. I discovered later that eight or ten of them constituted her limit. Beyond that she was distressed. She showed this by standing still, stretching her head back and out, back and out, then opening her mouth very wide, wider than would be thought possible. This seemed to relieve her. There was no sound to it, but it must have been sort of a refined, silent belch. I had overloaded her poor little insides with these rich bits. Where was her own protective instinct? I don’t know. If any amount of the meats were left in a dish she would never overeat; but when one person after another was offering them, she just cooperated too well.
The last guest left about five-thirty. I had had my Sunday dinner at noon, and was too tired to do more than get a cup of tea. Robert, as usual, was on the table as I relaxed with my tea. All at once I noticed that she was standing listlessly on one leg, her eyes closed, her head drooping till it was almost touching the table. Robert was just tired out. I picked her up, held her against me for a minute or two, talking comfortingly to her, and took her to her room. Without benefit of either orange juice or wild rice, I put her between the balls of yarn, pulled the shade, shut the door and I believe she was asleep before the latch clicked. She awoke even later than usual the next morning.
I was to realize later how many little cat naps (perhaps that is not the right word for a quail nap) she took during the day. She had had no naps all that long Sunday. The result was a completely exhausted little bird.
I also learned the following week that she greatly enjoyed an afternoon nap with me. These naps developed into quite a routine. I had cut up an old woolen blanket to make smaller ones for her. I kept them in her favorite places, such as on the old Bible, because if she was there for any length of time there were bound to be droppings. The blankets were easy to wash and saved a great deal of work.
The routine was for me to get my book, lie down on the day bed in the keeping room, spread the blanket on my middle and call Robert. She knew exactly what was happening and was always impatient to hop up with me. Her little sleepy sounds at these times were captivating. I am sorry I have no recording of them, though the Kienzles have a tape recording of most of her other calls. It took her a few minutes to get completely settled, but it always ended with her lying on her side, with her feet stretched out and her head stretched back in complete relaxation. I could turn or readjust my position and she slept on. The only thing that disturbed her was the telephone. When it rang she would awaken from a sound sleep, fluff up and literally yell for someone to answer it. (I do have proof of this in a photograph.) Once both of us slept uninterruptedly for almost two hours. I really believe that she looked forward to these naps, for the minute I got a book and the blanket she paced back and forth by the day bed. The truth is that we both enjoyed those naps. I was always surprised by the amount of warmth that radiated from that tiny body.
But to get back to the callers. Some came from curiosity, others from a real interest in birds; some came doubting the veracity of the stories they had heard about Robert; some came from a scientific interest in the quail; and many came not really in disbelief but wanting to see for themselves that stories they had read in local papers were not fictional. Those who came with disbelief shed it visibly, and the remark oftenest heard—not distinguished for its originality—was, “Well I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”
By far the majority of those who came experienced the wonder of it all. It was unprecedented, unheard of, to have a quail, the shyest of birds, run up to greet them vociferously and so eagerly. I was forced to keep my house in order, because I had purposely had the patio built with no door opening from it to the yard. Therefore that entrance to the house was cut off—which meant that everybody had to go through my kitchen. It was probably good for me. I need not have worried or apologized if there were dishes in the sink, since people had eyes for nothing but the beautiful, friendly little bird. Who could resist not only her greeting but her blandishments as she hopped up on a strange shoulder and cuddled under an ear?
One caller was an ornithologist from Canada who had read about the one-egg episode. It was hard to make him believe that Robert had laid just that one and no more. Was I sure she hadn’t hidden others? Was I sure she didn’t lay more outdoors? He finally believed me, but begrudgingly.
For the sake of truthfulness, I must admit that there was one person, and one only, among her hundreds of visitors, who resisted her charm. This was an artist who came from Province-town with her sixteen-year-old son. I noticed that the young lad had two or three cameras with him, but that was the rule rather than the exception among people who came. They stood outside the enclosure watching Robert, who remained on my shoulder. Finally I asked them to come in. The artist stayed outside, but at once her son was in the patio, camera poised, waiting for just the right shot. He took several pictures, and our local camera shop was so impressed with one of them that they asked permission to put it on a commercial postcard. I explained that, as far as I was concerned, they could, but that I would have to get clearance from her parents, who were now in Europe. An airmail letter brought a response within a week, granting their permission. The card has been sold by the thousands. It was odd that out of the visit of the one and only person who did not capitulate to Robert, came some of her most dramatic publicity. At least, up to then it was her most dramatic publicity—but little did we know what lay ahead. In all fairness to the artist, I will say that in subsequent visits she almost learned to love the quail.
Robert was sensitive to color, and here again had distinct preferences. High on the list was red. She always selected the red candies from a dish, chose hearts and diamonds when joining in a Canasta game, and picked out scraps of anything red when I was sewing. I was interested to read that only monkeys and birds have both rods and cones in their eyes, as does man, thus enabling them to distinguish color. I knew she could tell color but was glad to have this knowledge authenticated.
Often there would be three or four friends here in the afternoon and I would serve tea. Robert loved these occasions, and was always a member of the party. She would fly up onto the tea table and, clucking delightedly, would go f
rom one to another guest for a nibble of cookie or cake. She had very cosmopolitan tastes in food and would try almost anything. The one exception was banana. She always walked away from bananas, to the extent of ignoring my breakfast cereal if there were slices of banana on it. Otherwise she liked cereal, and when there were fresh berries on it, any kind of berries, her joy knew no bounds.
Most people called ahead to make an appointment to see Robert. However, some, even strangers, just appeared at the door. When I greeted such a stranger and heard, “Pardon me, but is this the place where the little—?” I knew. They usually came in a bit apologetically, saying they hoped they were not inconveniencing me, that they would stay only a minute, and so on. Those minutes were always magnified, often reaching hours.
That Quail, Robert Page 6
