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IDENTITY AND DIALECT
PERFORMANCE

Identity and Dialect Performance discusses the relationship between identity and dia-
lects. It starts from the assumption that the use of dialects is not just a product
of social and demographic factors, but can also be an intentional performance of
identity. Dialect performance is related to identity construction and in a highly
globalised world, the linguistic repertoire has increased rapidly, thereby changing
our conventional assumptions about dialects and their usage.
The key outstanding feature of this particular book is that it spans an exten-
sive range of communities and dialects; Canada, Colombia, Egypt, French Guiana,
Germany, Italy, Japan, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, Scotland, Senegal, Spain, Syria, The
Netherlands, The Sudan, and the UK and US.

Reem Bassiouney is Professor of Linguistics at The American University of Cairo

Her recent book publications include Functions of Code-Switching in Egypt (2006),
Arabic Sociolinguistics (2008), Arabic and the Media (2010, editor), Arabic Language and
Linguistics (2012, co-editor), Language and Identity in Modern Egypt (2014), and The
Routledge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics (forthcoming, co-editor).
Routledge Studies in Language and Identity
Series Editor: Reem Bassiouney

The Routledge Studies in Language and Identity (RSLI) series aims to examine
the intricate relation between language and identity from different perspectives.
The series straddles fields such as sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, applied lin-
guistics, historical linguistics and linguistic anthropology. It aims to study identity
and language by utilizing novel methods of analysis as well as ground breaking
theoretical approaches.

Titles in series:
Arabic in Israel: Language, Identity and Conflict
Muhammad Amara

Identity and Dialect Performance: A Study of Communities and Dialects

Reem Bassiouney

For more titles, please visit www.routledge.com/languages/series/RSLI

IDENTITY AND DIALECT
PERFORMANCE
A Study of Communities
and Dialects

Edited by Reem Bassiouney

First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Reem Bassiouney; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of Reem Bassiouney to be identified as the author of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bassiouney, Reem, 1973– editor.
Title: Identity and dialect performance : a study of communities and dialects /
edited by Reem Bassiouney.
Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge,
2017. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017018132 (print) | LCCN 2017027081 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781315279732 (eBook) | ISBN 9781315279725 (pdf) |
ISBN 9781315279718 (ePub) | ISBN 9781315279701 (Mobipocket) |
ISBN 9781138241756 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138241787
(pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Dialectology. | Languages in contact. | Group identity.
Classification: LCC P367 (ebook) | LCC P367 .I33 2017 (print) | DDC
417/.2—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017018132
ISBN: 978-1-138-24175-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-24178-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-27973-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
CONTENTS

List of figures viii

List of tables x
List of contributors xi
Acknowledgementsxvii

Introduction 1

PART I
Dialects in localised and delocalised contexts 15

1 Nonstandard dialect and identity 17

John Edwards

2 The elusive dialect border 35

Dick Smakman and Marten van der Meulen

3 Dialect performances in superdiverse communities:

The case for ethnographic approaches to language
variation49
Anna De Fina
vi Contents

PART II
Nation-states and identity construction in relation to
a standard and a dialect 69

4 The construction of linguistic borders and the rise of

national identity in South Sudan: Some insights into Juba
Arabic (Árabi Júba) 71
Stefano Manfredi

5 From language to dialect and back: The case of Piedmontese 86

Mauro Tosco

6 Darija and the construction of “Moroccanness” 99

Dominique Caubet

7 “Sloppy speech is like sloppy dress”: Folk attitudes towards

nonstandard British English 125
Carmen Ebner

PART III
Contact, variation, performance and
metalinguistic discourse 141

8 From varieties in contact to the selection of linguistic

resources in multilingual settings 143
Isabelle Léglise and Santiago Sánchez Moreano

9 “You live in the United States, you speak English,” decían

las maestras: How New Mexican Spanish speakers enact,
ascribe, and reject ethnic identities 160
Katherine O’Donnell Christoffersen and Naomi L. Shin

10 The social meanings of Wolof and French: Contact dialects,

language ideology, and competing modernities in Senegal 179
Fiona Mc Laughlin

11 The social value of linguistic practices in Tetouan and

Ghomara (Northwestern Morocco) 192
Ángeles Vicente and Amina Naciri-Azzouz
 Contents vii

12 New presentations of self in everyday life: Linguistic

transgressions in England, Germany, and Japan 210
Patrick Heinrich

13 Language and identity in Siwa Oasis: Indexing belonging,

localness, and authenticity in a small minority community 226
Valentina Serreli

PART IV
The media, dialect performance, and language variation 243

14 YouTube Yinzers: Stancetaking and the performance of

‘Pittsburghese’245
Scott F. Kiesling

15 Performing identity on screen: Language, identity, and

humour in Scottish television comedy 265
Natalie Braber

16 Identity, repertoire, and performance: The case of

an Egyptian poet 286
Reem Bassiouney

17 Ruination and amusement – dialect, youth, and revolution

in Naija 303
Anne Storch

18 Dialectal variation and identity in post-revolutionary

Libyan media: The case of Dragunov (2014) 321
Luca D’Anna

19 The effect of TV and internal vs. external contact on

variation in Syrian rural child language 340
Rania Habib

Index357
FIGURES

3.1 Percentage of turns with Sicilian by day. 55

3.2 Marked vs. neutral speech acts in Sicilian. 60
3.3 Distribution of marked speech acts (boys and girls). 61
6.1 Telquel magazine, June 2002 © Dominique Caubet.  109
6.2 Le Journal Hebdomadaire; drawing by Beyoud. © Dominique
Caubet.112
8.1 Imbabura and Chimborazo. 149
14.1 Pitch track of an example of the L*+H L% falling question
intonation.255
14.2 Frame of Donny from the ‘Idlewild’ episode. Approximately line
51 in the transcript. 256
14.3 Frame grab of Kreutzer from the ‘Idlewild’ episode.
Approximately line 50 in the transcript. 256
14.4 Frame grab of Greg from the ‘Idlewild’ episode. Approximately
line 50 in the transcript. 257
15.1 Glasgow mug design, used with permission, Sprint Design, Glasgow. 272
15.2 Drinks coaster with local phrase (this is a catch phrase from
Chewin’ the Fat), used with permission, Sprint Design, Glasgow. 272
15.3 Ned (this is not from Chewin’ the Fat as no images were
available, but of a Glaswegian comedian, Neil Bratchpiece,
dressed as a ned). Used with permission, Creative Commons
Attribution Licence. 275
15.4 Banter Boy: Gary, used with copyright permission BBC. 276
17.1 About Naija lingo (Ofunne & Nwokogba 2007: http://www.
naijalingo.com/about).311
17.2 Revolutionary collections of ‘campus slang’ (Chigozie 2015). 312
17.3 Musings of a Crazy Nigerian (Farouk 2012). 313
 Figures ix

17.4 Blasted English (http://www.nairaland.com/2132954/girl-

failed-english-exam).316
19.1 Main effects of the fixed effects TV, internal and external
contacts. Fixed Effects Target: [ʔ] / (q) 350
19.2 The effect of internal contact with friends and relatives who use
[ʔ] predominantly on the use of [q] vs. [ʔ].350
19.3 Coefficients indicating the significant categories within each
fixed factor. Fixed coefficients target: [ʔ] / (q) 351
TABLES

3.1 Class composition. 53

3.2 Children of foreign origins born in Italy. 54
3.3 Children born abroad. 54
3.4 Distribution of turns by participants. 56
4.1 Paradigm types. 75
6.1 Figures of online audiences in Morocco, courtesy of internetworldstats.119
9.1 Participants of the New Mexico and Colorado Spanish Survey. 163
13.1 Interviewees’ information. 230
15.1 Variables for the Neds. 278
15.2 Variables for the Banter Boys. 281
16.1 Stance and linguistic repertoire of the poet in the four
poems analysed. 293
18.1 Demonstratives for near deixis in TA, MA, and BA. 326
18.2 Near-deixis demonstratives in the speech of the five characters
under analysis. 326
18.3 Distribution of the hādv and hēdv variables in pro- and
anti-Ghaddafi characters. 327
19.1 General Distribution of [q] and [ʔ] in the speech of the
50 children and boys and girls. 348
19.2 Gender and age group differences in the use of [q] and [ʔ].348
19.3 Social and linguistic distribution of [q] and [ʔ] in the
speech of individual participants. 348
CONTRIBUTORS

Reem Bassiouney (DPhil, Oxon) is Professor of Linguistics at The American

University of Cairo. Her recent book publications include Functions of code-switching
in Egypt (2006), Arabic sociolinguistics (2008), Arabic and the media (2010 editor), Arabic
language and linguistics (2012 co-editor), Language and identity in modern Egypt (2014)
and The Routledge handbook of Arabic linguistics (2018 co-editor; forthcoming). Her
research focuses on topics in sociolinguistics, including; identity, code-switching,
language and gender, levelling, register and language policy and ideology. She is also
an award-winning novelist.

Dr Natalie Braber is Reader in Linguistics at Nottingham Trent University.

Her current research interests include sociolinguistics and language variation. In
particular, her research examines language variation in the East Midlands in the
UK. She is author of Nottinghamshire dialect (Bradwell Books, 2015), co-author of
Pit talk of the East Midlands (Bradwell Books, 2017); East Midlands English, in the
Dialects of English Series (De Gruyter, forthcoming) and co-editor of Sociolinguis-
tics in England (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming); Exploring language and linguistics
(Cambridge University Press, 2015). She has published research articles in English
Today, Oral History, Journal of Pragmatics and Identity.

Dominique Caubet is Professor Emeritus of Maghribi Arabic at the Institute of

Oriental Languages (INALCO), Paris, and Associate Researcher at the Centre
Jacques Berque, Rabat. Her research interests include general linguistics (aspect,
tense, modality, nominal determination, negation and enunciative particles),
sociolinguistics, from code-switching to youth languages, and the social status of
minority languages in the Maghreb and the European diaspora (France and The
Netherlands). She has published several books and numerous articles, including
Corpus-based studies of lesser described languages, the CorpAfroAs corpus of spoken Afro-
Asiatic languages (2015), Arabic in the city, issues in dialect contact and language variation
xii Contributors

(2007), and ‘Arabic Sociolinguistics in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)’
(2009).

Luca D’Anna received his PhD in Arabic Linguistics and Dialectology from the
University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’ in 2014. He currently holds the position of Assis-
tant Professor of Arabic at the University of Mississippi (Oxford, MS). His fields of
interest include Arabic linguistics and dialectology, Libyan Arabic, Sulaymite dia-
lects, Arabic sociolinguistics, and teaching Arabic as a second language.

Anna De Fina is Professor of Italian Language and Linguistics in the Italian Depart-
ment and Affiliated Faculty with the Linguistics Department at Georgetown Uni-
versity. Her research interests and publications focus on identity, narrative, discourse,
and migration, as well as diversity. Her books include Identity in narrative: a study of
immigrant discourse (2003), Analyzing narratives (2012), and the Handbook of narrative
analysis (2015).

Carmen Ebner was a Doctoral Researcher in the project ‘Bridging the unbridge-
able: linguists, prescriptivists and the general public’ at the University of Leiden.
For her PhD thesis, Carmen conducted a sociolinguistic investigation into attitudes
towards usage problems in British English. Her research interests also include lan-
guage ideologies and the field of language and identity. Her publications include
‘Blaming the media? Folk attitudes towards the state of the English language and its
“wrongdoers”’ (2016), ‘Language guardian BBC? Investigating the BBC’s language
advice in its 2003 News Styleguide’ (2015), and ‘The dangling participle – a lan-
guage myth?’ (2014).

John Edwards received his PhD from McGill University in 1974. After working
as a Research Fellow at the Educational Research Centre in Dublin (now part of
Dublin City University), he moved to St Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia.
He is now Senior Research Professor there, and also Adjunct Professor (Gradu-
ate Studies) at Dalhousie University. He is a member of several psychological and
linguistic societies, as well as scholarly organisations for the study of ethnicity and
nationalism. He is a fellow of the British Psychological Society, the Canadian Psy-
chological Association, and the Royal Society of Canada. His main research interest
is the maintenance and continuity of group identity, with particular reference to
language in both its communicative and symbolic aspects. He has lectured and pre-
sented papers on this topic in thirty countries, and his work has been translated into
half a dozen languages. Edwards is on the editorial boards of a dozen international
language journals and is the editor of the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural
Development. He is also the editor of the Multilingual Matters book series. Edwards’
books include Multilingualism (1995), Language in Canada (1998), Language and iden-
tity (2009), Multilingualism: understanding linguistic diversity (2012) and Sociolinguistics:
a very short introduction (2013). He is also the author of many articles, chapters, and
reviews.
 Contributors xiii

Rania Habib is Associate Professor of Linguistics and Arabic and Coordinator of

Arabic Program at Syracuse University. Dr. Habib specializes in sociolinguistics,
particularly language variation and change with interests in bilingualism, cross-cul-
tural communication, child and adolescent language and second language/dialect
acquisition, phonology, pragmatics, and syntax. Her research is interdisciplinary and
has applied diverse qualitative and quantitative methods of analyses to sociolinguis-
tic variation and change, including Optimality Theory and the Gradual Learning
Algorithm. Her present research deals with dialectal variation in the colloquial
Syrian Arabic of rural migrant and non-migrant speakers to urban centers and the
change that their speech undergoes due to linguistic, social, and psychological fac-
tors, such as prestige, age, gender, residential area, contact, identity, ideology, social
meanings, social practices, etc. For the past few years, she has been investigating the
spread of urban linguistic features in the speech of rural children, adolescents, and
adults in Syrian Arabic, comparing the speech of children to that of their parents to
inform linguistic theory about whether children’s acquisition of variation is a mere
statistical learning of their parents’ input or is developmental in nature. Her work
has appeared in prestigious journals such as Journal of Pragmatics, Language Variation
and Change, and Journal of Child Language.

Patrick Heinrich is an Associate Professor in the Department of Asian and Mediter-

ranean African Studies at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Before joining Ca’ Foscari,
he taught at universities in Germany, France, and Japan. His present research interests
focus on globalising sociolinguistics, language shift dynamics, language policy, and
ideology. His recently edited books include Globalising sociolinguistics (2017), Handbook
of the Ryukyuan languages (2015), Language crisis in the Ryukyus (2014), and Language
life in Japan (2011). His latest monograph is The making of monolingual Japan (2012).

Scott F. Kiesling is Professor in the Linguistics Department at the University of

Pittsburgh. He received his PhD from Georgetown University. His research inter-
ests include stance, language and masculinity, and Pittsburgh speech and society. His
publications include The handbook of intercultural discourse and communication (2012),
Linguistic variation and change (2011), and Intercultural discourse and communication: the
essential readings (2005).

Isabelle Léglise is a Senior Researcher in Linguistics at the French National

Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS, Paris), where she heads programmes on
multilingualism, language variation, and contact at the SeDyL-CNRS (Structure
et Dynamique des Langues). Since 2000, she has been engaged in research projects
in French Guiana, Suriname, and Brazil, with a special focus on multilingualism
related to migration and educational issues. She has published widely on language
variation and contact-induced changes, languaging and heterogeneous corpora, as
well as discourse analysis and language policy related to education and health. Her
most recent publications include Exploring language in a multilingual context: variation,
interaction and ideology in language documentation (2013; with B. Migge), The interplay
xiv Contributors

of variation and change in contact settings (2013), and In and out of Suriname: language,
mobility and identity (2015).

Stefano Manfredi is a Junior CNRS Researcher at SeDyL (Structure et Dynamique

des Langues). His main areas of interest are Arabic-based pidgins and creoles, Arabic
dialectology, the linguistic and sociolinguistic effects of language contact, and lan-
guage policy and planning in Sudan and South Sudan. He has published numerous
articles and chapters on Juba Arabic, as well as on western Sudanic Arabic dialects.
He recently edited, in collaboration with Mauro Tosco (University of Turin), a
special issue of the Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages dedicated to linguistic and
sociolinguistic aspects of Arabic-based pidgins and creoles. He is a member of sev-
eral international projects, such as the Atlas of pidgin and creole structures (Max Planck
Institute, Germany), Pidgins et créoles en contact (TUL, France) and Linguistic and
cultural areas of transition in Africa (FRB, Italy). Notably, he has constructed a corpus
of spoken Juba Arabic for the project CorpAfroAs (ANR, France).

Fiona Mc Laughlin is a Professor of Linguistics and African Languages at the Uni-

versity of Florida. She has worked extensively on the phonology and morphology
of Pulaar, Wolof, and Seereer, and her current research is on language contact and
multilingualism in urban Africa, with a focus on Dakar. She has published widely
in these fields. Her translation of Boubacar Boris Diop’s novel, Murambi, le livre des
ossements, was published by Indiana University Press in 2006, and her edited vol-
ume, The languages of urban Africa, appeared in 2008 with Continuum Press. Fiona’s
work has been supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the
Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Camargo Founda-
tion, and Fulbright. She has taught at the Université Abdou Moumouni in Niamey,
Niger and the Université Gaston Berger in Saint-Louis, Senegal and is a former
director of the West Africa Research Center in Dakar.

Amina Naciri-Azzouz is a PhD candidate at the University of Zaragoza (Spain).

She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Arabic Philology (2006-2011) from the
Complutense University (Madrid, Spain). Her research focuses on the description
of the Ghomara Arabic varieties (Northwestern Morocco) in a context of linguistic
change in progress.Thus, her research interests include Arabic dialectogy and socio-
linguistics, ethnolinguistics, and language contact.

Katherine O’Donnell Christoffersen is an Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics

at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She holds a PhD in Second Language
Acquisition & Teaching from the University of Arizona. Her research analyzes the
social contexts of bilingualism, code-switching, and identity construction through
the use of ethnographic and conversation/discourse analytic methodologies. She
has published articles in publications such as the Portuguese Language Journal, Working
Papers on Educational Linguistics, Arizona Working Papers, and GiST Education and Learn-
ing Research Journal.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of My pets
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
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laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: My pets
Real happenings in my aviary

Author: Marshall Saunders

Release date: June 9, 2024 [eBook #73801]

Language: English

Original publication: Philadelphia: The Griffith & Rowland Press,

1908

Credits: Charlene Taylor, Joeri de Ruiter and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
images generously made available by The Internet
Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY PETS ***

MY PETS
European Goldfinch
Page 104
 MY PETS
Real Happenings in My Aviary

By
Marshall Saunders
Author of “Beautiful Joe”

Illustrated from Photographs

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain.
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Philadelphia
The Griffith & Rowland Press
Boston Chicago Atlanta
New York St. Louis Dallas
 Copyright 1908 by the
American Baptist Publication Society

Published August, 1908

From the Society’s own Press

 DEDICATION
I dedicate this book to those of my boy and girl friends who are
never satisfied with a story unless it is entirely true. While the most
of my stories are partly true, I have never before written one that is
entirely and wholly true in every particular. The story of my aviary
and the pets in it is taken from my diaries, and many of the birds are
still living and moving and having their being, and are always glad to
see any girls and boys who call on them, if they do not come in too
great numbers at one time.
Marshall Saunders.
Boston, January, 1908.
 CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. The Story of Two Owls 11
II. The Owls Start on Their Travels 22
III. A Reign of Robins 34
IV. A Naughty Mockingbird 41
V. A Robin and Sparrow Friendship 48
VI. Dixie and Tardy 57
VII. Rabbits and Guineapigs 66
VIII. My Pet Rats 75
IX. Farewell to the Rats and Rabbits 83
X. A Bird from Over the Sea 95
XI. Good-bye to the Gallinules 104
XII. First Acquaintance with Pigeons 111
XIII. The Homing Pigeon the King of Birds 120
XIV. Princess Sukey 129
XV. Pigeons and Hawks 139
XVI. Sukey and Her Foster-pigeon 150
XVII. Minnie Post-office 161
XVIII. My First Canaries 168
XIX. Raising Young Birds 179
XX. Canary Characteristics 191
XXI. Little Peters 200
Chapter Page
XXII. Crested Cardinals 212
XXIII. Cardinal Babies 226
XXIV. Sparrows and Swallows 239
XXV. A Mother Carey’s Chicken 248
XXVI. Sweet-sweet and the Saint of the Aviary 252
XXVII. A Hummingbird and Native and Foreign Finches 262
XXVIII. Japanese Robins and a Bobolink 275
 LIST OF
COLORED ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
European Goldfinch Frontispiece
Purple Gallinule 95
American Goldfinch 195
Red and Brazilian Cardinals 212
Indigo Bunting 260
Flying Squirrels 273
 CHAPTER I
THE STORY OF TWO OWLS

The birds that really started me in the serious, and yet amusing task
of keeping an aviary, were two little Californian screech owls.
The year was 1899, and I was studying boy life in the charming
Belmont School, twenty-five miles from San Francisco. The grounds
of the school lie on the lower slope of hills that enclose an open
valley fronting the bay of San Francisco. A walk of twelve miles took
us to the shores of the Pacific. Close to the school were beautiful
cañons that the boys and older persons were never tired of
exploring. The lads of the school were allowed to keep dogs, horses,
pigeons, poultry—indeed, any pets they chose to have. One day,
when I was up in the poultry yard, where there were some choice
bantams and game-fowl, I saw a boy trotting about with a box in his
hand.
“What have you there?” I asked.
“Four little owls,” he replied. “I got them the other day when I was
out walking, and I had their mother too, but she has flown away.”
“What are you going to do with them?” I said.
“I don’t know,” he replied thoughtfully. “I don’t want to bother
with them. I suppose it would be best to kill them.”
I looked in the box. Those four solemn-eyed, motherless balls of
down appealed to me. In southern California I had been very much
taken with the little owls that sat on hillocks, and turned their heads
round and round to look after any one riding or driving by, until it
really seemed as if they would twist them off.
I felt that I must adopt these little Northerners, so I said to the
boy, “I will take them.”
He joyfully resigned his charges, for he did not like the idea of
destroying them, and I thoughtfully pursued my way to my room;
what did owls eat?
 I asked everybody I met, and the universal recommendation was,
“Give them raw meat. That is the best substitute for the birds, mice,
and insects that their parents catch for them.”
I went to the Japanese cook, and with a friendly grin he seized a
huge knife and swung himself down the hill to the meat-room.
On receiving a piece of beef, I minced it fine, and dropped small
morsels into the open beaks of my new pets. They were hungry, and
after eating, nestled down together and went to sleep.
The days are mild, but the nights are chilly about the bay of San
Francisco. So after their latest supper, I put a rubber bag of hot
water under their nest and covered them up for the night.
In the morning I hurried to their basket, and uncovered the nest I
had made for them. They were as warm as toast, and four wide-
open beaks pleaded eloquently for food. I cut up more meat, and for
days fed them when hungry, and carried them out of doors in the
sunshine, where they were objects of interest to every one about
the place, especially to the dogs that would fain have devoured
them.
One Sierra collie dog, Teddy Roosevelt by name, in whose
upbringing I was assisting, used to tremble as he stared at them,
partly from jealousy, partly because he recognized lawful prey in
them.
One day some one suggested gopher—that is, ground-squirrel
meat—as a change of diet. The gophers do an immense amount of
damage in California on lawns and in flower-gardens, where they
burrow to get at the tender roots.
I went to a house near by, where a gentleman was trying to get
rid of the gophers that were devastating his lawn. He put up a
warning hand when he saw me coming. A line of hose lay beside
him, with which he had been trying to flood a gopher out of his hole.
Presently the poor little fellow came struggling up. The gentleman
despatched him with a satisfied, “He is the last one. Now the grass
will grow.”
He presented me with the dead body, and animated by a feeling
of duty to my owl family, I carried it home, cut off a piece, and
offered it to the owls. They would not eat it. They preferred mutton,
beef, or veal. On these they flourished.
Soon I had another meat-eating bird given to me. While walking in
a beautiful cañon, where live-oaks and ferns, green from spring
rains, abounded, one of the teachers who had strayed from the rest
of the party, came back to us with a young sparrowhawk that he had
found. No parents seemed to be near. If left on the ground it would
perish. In the light of subsequent experience, I would have put it
high up on a branch and left it, trusting to the parents to find it. At
that time I did not understand how faithful and constant birds are in
following their young, so I took it in spite of its dismal squawks, and
carried it back to the school.
My owls, by this time, had grown famously, and like children, they
began to exercise their tiny limbs. It was very amusing to see them
trying to climb from the center of their box to the top. They would
stretch out diminutive claws, mount over each other, fall back, try
again, and finally succeeded in sitting all in a row on the top, looking
with solemn, questioning eyes on the great world around them. I put
Hawkie with them, and they adopted him as a brother, and usually
kept him in the middle. It was a pretty sight to see the row of five,
with the mottled, brown bird tucked snugly between his owl friends.
When the summer vacation came, and the boys dispersed, I went
with some friends to live in a cottage across the bay of San
Francisco, just under the slope of Mount Tamalpais. At the back of
the cottage was a veranda shaded by a climbing rose. In the rose
branches I put Hawkie and my two owls, named Solomon and Betsy.
Very regretfully I had been obliged to part from two of the little
owls, for the boy who had given them to me was so pleased with the
progress they had made, that he asked for the return of a part of his
gift. I was sorry afterward that he had not let me keep them, for a
cat soon made away with them. As the summer went by, I wondered
that I did not lose my three pets. They sat all day long in the rose
branches. Daytime, of course, is sleepy time for owls, but even when
dusk came on they made no attempt to fly away, and the hawk only
made one or two half-hearted efforts to fly across the garden out
into the road.
 Toward autumn the owls were fully developed, and other little
screech owls had found them out, and at dusk would come about
the cottage, saying softly, “Too, who, who, who, who!”
Solomon and Betsy never seemed interested enough to respond,
and every evening I took them in the house where Hawkie went to
sleep, and Betsy and Solomon became lively, and in the gentlest and
sweetest of tones hooted for their meat.
They were tiny creatures, their bodies being not much larger than
a New England robin’s, but their eyes seemed immense. They had a
peculiar habit of staring at their food, then twisting their heads
round and round before they pounced on it. It was very amusing to
see the owls “focus,” and it became a way of entertaining our
friends.
They often had a tug of war over their meat, when I gave it to
them without cutting it up. Sollie would seize one end of a piece of
beefsteak, and Betsy would grasp the other, and then they would
brace their little claws and pull until the taste of the raw flesh being
too tantalizing, one would let go to swallow a morsel, and at once
lose the whole thing.
When the autumn had come we, with other summer residents, left
Mill Valley where, I must not forget to say, numbers of beautiful
birds abounded. Some of the public-spirited citizens had imported
foreign birds in the hope of acclimating them. I was often awakened
by a gay note and a flash of red at the window, as some foreigner
wished me good-morning. The birds were protected, and the fine
forests were also protected. When we went for picnics, mounted
guards would warn us that we must light no fires under the
magnificent old trees.
The owl’s next place of residence was Berkeley, where my younger
sister went to take classes in the State University. We had rented a
small cottage there, and to this day we laugh over our experiences
in moving to our new home. We had the two owls, Hawkie, the dog
Teddy, and a chipmunk that my married sister had brought me from
Lake Tahoe, that most beautiful of Californian summer resorts. How
were we to take charge of all these creatures? For we had to cross
the bay of San Francisco, then recross it to Berkeley. We finally got a
large cage for Hawkie and the owls, and put in a compartment,
giving them the upper part, and the chipmunk the lower. The dog
we put on a chain.
Taking the train from Mill Valley to Sausalito, we boarded the
steamer for San Francisco, changed to another, and went across the
bay to Oakland, thence by train to Berkeley. When we arrived there
it was late in the afternoon, and my sister and I, the dog, the owls,
Hawkie, and the chipmunk, were all tired out. Indeed, the dog, who
was very petted and spoiled, and who did not enjoy traveling, had
dark rings around his eyes, and was in a peevish, mischievous
condition. To my sister’s disgust, for she being the younger was the
victim, he started to run away. She had to run after him, and came
back exhausted.
To add to our troubles, we could not get into our cottage that
night. Fortunately, our landlady took boarders, and offered us a
room in her house. We gladly accepted this offer, and putting the
subdued Teddy in a tool-shed, took the birds in the house.
My sister says she never was more tired in her life than she was
that night. We were sleeping blissfully, when we were awakened by
a well-known sound. The naughty little owls, glad of the peace and
quietness of the night after the turmoil of the day, were hooting
persistently and melodiously.
“The landlady and the boarders,” gasped my sister; “they will hear
and wake up. Can’t you stop the little wretches?”
I sprang out of bed, and addressed a solemn remonstrance to
Solomon and Betsy. They were exceedingly glad to see me, and
distending their little throats, continued to hoot, their clear, sweet
young voices carrying only too well on the still Californian night air.
Then the chipmunk woke up and began to slide up and down an
inclined piece of wood in his part of the cage. We were in despair.
We could not sleep, until I had the happy thought of giving the owls
a bath. I seized Betsy, held her in a basin of water, and wet her
feathers considerably. Then I served Solomon in the same way, and
for the rest of the night the tiny little things occupied themselves in
smoothing their wet plumage. The chipmunk quieted down, and we
had peace.
 When we got into the cottage I had a carpenter build a small
aviary at the back of it, with a box for rainy weather. The nights
were not too cold for my hardy birds. Indeed, they were not too cold
for many semi-tropical ones. I found a bird fancier not far from me,
who had built a good-sized, open-air aviary, where he kept canaries
and foreign finches all the year round, with only a partly open, glass
shelter for the birds to use when it rained.
My sparrowhawk did not seem unhappy in my aviary, but he never
had the contented, comfortable expression that the owls had. His
apathy was pathetic, and the expression of his beautiful, cruel eyes
was an unsatisfied one. In time, I should have allowed him to go,
but suddenly he fell ill. I think I overfed him, for I got him into the
habit of taking a late supper, always leaning out the window and
handing him a piece of meat on the end of a stick before I went to
bed.
I brought him into the warm kitchen, where he moped about for a
few days. Just before he died he came hopping toward the parlor,
where I sat entertaining a friend. I often took him in there on the
broad windowsill and talked to him as I sat sewing.
He stood in the doorway, gave me a peculiar look, as if to say, “I
would come in if you were alone,” hopped back to the kitchen, and
in a short time was no more.
My sister and I mourned sincerely for our pretty bird, and I had
the uncomfortable feeling that I might have done better if I had left
him in his own habitat—but then he might have starved to death if
his parents had not found him. Would death by starvation have been
any more painful than his death with me? Possibly some larger
creature might have killed him swiftly and mercifully—it was a
puzzling case, and I resolved to give up worrying about it. I had
done what I considered was best, and I tried to console myself for
his death in petting the dear little owls that had become so tame
that they called to my sister and me whenever they saw us, and
loved to have us take them in our hands and caress them.
About them I had no misgivings. They would certainly have died if
I had not adopted them, and there was no question about their
happiness. They were satisfied with a state of captivity. They had so
far lost one of their owl habits, for they kept awake nearly all day,
and slept nearly all night—and they could see quite well in the most
brilliant Californian sunlight, and that is pretty brilliant. A cat or a
dog many yards distant would cause them to raise excitedly the
queer little ear tufts that play so prominent a part in the facial
expression of some owls, and they would crack their beaks together
and hiss angrily if the enemy came too near.
Cats and dogs frightened them, and a broom merely excited them.
When strangers wanted to see the elevation of these tufts, a broom,
swiftly passed over the floor, would cause Solomon and Betsy to
become very wide awake, with feather tufts straight up in the air. I
never saw them abjectly and horribly frightened but once. A lady
had brought her handsome parrot into the room where the owls
were. The poor little mites put up their ear tufts, swayed to and fro
on their perch, and instead of packing their feathers and becoming
thin and elongated in appearance, as they did for cats and dogs,
they puffed themselves out, snapped their beaks, and uttered the
loudest hissing noise I had ever heard from them.
From their extremity of fear I concluded that their instinct told
them this danger was so imminent that they must make themselves
as formidable as possible.
The parrot was of course quickly removed, and I took care that
they should never again see another one.
 CHAPTER II
THE OWLS START ON THEIR TRAVELS

Betsy and Solomon lived happily through that winter and spring, and
before summer came we had made up our minds to return to the
East. What should we do with the owls? They would be a great deal
of trouble to some one. They required an immense amount of
petting, and a frequent supply of perfectly fresh meat. No matter
how busy we were, one of us had to go to the butcher every other
day.
We began to inquire among our friends who would like a nice,
affectionate pair of owls? There seemed no great eagerness on the
part of any one to take the pets we so much valued. Plans for their
future worried me so much that at last I said to my sister, “We will
take them East with us.”
The owls, who were to take so long a journey, became objects of
interest to our friends, and at a farewell tea given to us, a smartly
dressed young man vowed that he must take leave of Solomon and
Betsy. Calling for a broom, he slowly passed it to and fro over the
carpet before them, while they sat looking at him with lifted ear tufts
that betrayed great interest in his movements.
We trembled a little in view of our past moving experiences, but
we were devoted to the little creatures and, when the time came,
we cheerfully boarded the overland train at Oakland.
We had with us Betsy and Solomon in their large cage, and in a
little cage a pair of strawberry finches, so called because their
breasts are dotted like a strawberry. A friend had requested us to
bring them East for her. We had also a dog—not Teddy, that had
only been lent to us; but our own Irish setter Nita, one of the most
lovable and interesting animals that I have ever owned.
The chipmunk was no longer with us. He had not seemed happy
in the aviary—indeed, he lay down in it and threw me a cunning
look, as if to say, “I will die if you don’t let me out of this.” So I gave
him the freedom of the house. That pleased him, and for a few days
he was very diligent in assisting us with our housekeeping by picking
all the crumbs off the floors and eating them. Then he disappeared,
and I hope was happy ever after among the superb oak trees of the
university grounds close to us.
When we started for the East, the pets, of course, had to go into
the baggage car, and I must say here for the benefit of those
persons who wish to travel with animals and birds, that there is good
accommodation for them on overland trains. Sometimes we bought
tickets for them, sometimes they had to go in an express car,
sometimes we tipped the baggagemasters, but the sums spent were
not exorbitant, and we found everywhere provision made for pets.
You cannot take them in your rooms in hotels, but there is a place
for them somewhere, and they will be brought to you whenever you
wish to see them, or to give them exercise. We were on several
different railway lines, and visited eight different cities, and the dog
and birds, upon arriving in eastern Canada, seemed none the worse
for their trip.
However, I would not by any means encourage the transportation
of animals. Indeed, my feelings on the subject, since I understand
the horrors animals and birds endure while being whirled from one
place to another, are rather too strong for utterance. I would only
say that in a case like mine, where separation between an owner
and pets would mean unhappiness, it is better for both to endure a
few days or weeks of travel. Then the case of animals and birds
traveling with some one who sees and encourages them every day is
different from the case of unfortunate creatures sent off alone.
Our Nita was taken out of the car at every station where it was
possible to exercise her, and one of us would run into restaurants
along the route to obtain fresh meat for the owls. Their cage was
closely covered, but whenever they heard us coming they hooted,
and as no one seemed to guess what they were, they created a
great deal of interest. My sister and I were amused one evening in
Salt Lake City to see a man bending over the cage with an air of
perplexity.
 “They must be pollies,” he said at last, and yet his face showed
that he did not think those were parrot noises issuing from within.
I remember one evening on arriving in Albany, New York, causing
slight consternation in the hotel by a demand for raw meat. We
hastened to explain that we did not want it for ourselves, and finally
obtained what we wished.
As soon as we arrived home in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the owls were
put downstairs in a nice, dry basement. They soon found their way
upstairs, where the whole family was prepared to welcome them on
account of their pretty ways and their love for caresses.
Strange to say, they took a liking to my father, who did not notice
them particularly, and a mischievous dislike to my mother, who was
disposed to pet them. They used to fly on her head whenever they
saw her. Their little claws were sharp and unpleasant to her scalp.
We could not imagine why they selected her head unless it was that
her gray hair attracted them. However, we had a French Acadian
maid called Lizzie, whose hair was jet black, and they disliked her
even more than they did my mother.
Lizzie, to get to her storeroom, had to cross the furnace-room
where the owls usually were, and she soon began to complain
bitterly of them.
“Dey watch me,” she said indignantly, “dey fly on my head, dey
scratch me, an’ pull out my hairpins, an’ make my head sore.”
“Why don’t you push them off, Lizzie?” I asked, “they are only tiny
things.”
“Dey won’t go—dey hold on an’ beat me,” she replied, and soon
the poor girl had to arm herself with a switch when she went near
them.
Lizzie was a descendant of the veritable Acadians mentioned in
Longfellow’s “Evangeline,” of whom there are several thousand in
Nova Scotia. My mother was attached to her, and at last she said, “I
will not have Lizzie worried. Bring the owls up in my bathroom.”
There they seemed perfectly happy, sitting watching the sparrows
from the window and teasing my long-suffering mother, who was
obliged to give up using gas in this bathroom, for very often the
owls put it out by flying at it.
 One never heard them coming. I did not before this realize how
noiseless the flight of an owl is. One did not dream they were near
till there was a breath of air fanning one’s cheek. After we gave up
the gas, for fear they would burn themselves, we decided to use a
candle. It was absolutely necessary to have an unshaded light, for
they would perch on any globe shading a flame, and would burn
their feet.
The candle was more fun for them than the gas, for it had a
smaller flame, and was more easily extinguished, and usually on
entering the room, away would go the light, and we would hear in
the corner a laughing voice, saying “Too, who, who, who, who!”
The best joke of all for the owls was to put out the candle when
one was taking a bath, and I must say I heard considerable
grumbling from the family on the subject. It seemed impossible to
shade the light from them, and to find one’s self in the dark in the
midst of a good splash, to have to emerge from the tub, dripping
and cross, and search for matches, was certainly not calculated to
add to one’s affection for Solomon and Betsy. However, they were
members of the family, and as George Eliot says, “The members of
your family are like the nose on your face—you have got to put up
with it, seeing you can’t get rid of it.”
Alas! the time soon came when we had to lament the death of
one of our troublesome but beloved pets.
Betsy one day partook heartily of a raw fish head, and in spite of
remedies applied, sickened rapidly and sank into a dying condition.
I was surprised to find what a hold the little thing had taken on
my affection. When her soft, gray body became cold, I held her in
my hand close to the fire and, with tears in my eyes, wished for a
miracle to restore her to health.
She lay quietly until just before she died. Then she opened her
eyes and I called to the other members of the family to come and
see their strange expression. They became luminous and beautiful,
and dilated in a peculiar way. We hear of the eyes of dying persons
lighting up wonderfully, and this strange illumination of little Betsy’s
eyes reminded me of such cases.
 Even after death she lay with those wide-open eyes, and feeling
that I had lost a friend, I put down her little dead body. It was
impossible for me to conceal my emotion, and my mother, who had
quite forgotten Betsy’s hostility to her, generously took the little
feathered creature to a taxidermist.
I may say that Betsy was the first and last bird I shall ever have
stuffed. I dare say the man did the work as well as it could be done,
but I gazed in dismay at my Betsy when she came home. That stiff
little creature sitting on a stick, with glazed eyes and motionless
body, could not be the pretty little bird whose every motion was
grace. Ever since the day of Betsy’s death, I can feel no admiration
for a dead bird. Indeed, I turn sometimes with a shudder from the
agonized postures, the horrible eyes of birds in my sister women’s
hats—and yet I used to wear them myself. My present conviction
shows what education will do. If you like and study live birds, you
won’t want to wear dead ones.
After Betsy’s death Solomon seemed so lonely that I resolved to
buy him a companion. I chose a robin, and bought him for two
dollars from a woman who kept a small shop. A naturalist friend
warned me that I would have trouble, but I said remonstratingly,
“My owl is not like other owls. He has been brought up like a baby.
He does not know that his ancestors killed little birds.”
Alas! When my robin had got beautifully tame, when he would
hop about after me, and put his pretty head on one side while I dug
in the earth for worms for him, when he was apparently on the best
of terms with Sollie, I came home one day to a dreadful discovery.
Sollie was flying about with the robin’s body firmly clutched in one
claw. He had killed and partly eaten him. I caught him, took the
robin away from him, and upbraided him severely.
“Too, who, who, who who,” he said—apologetically, it seemed to
me, “instinct was too strong for me. I got tired of playing with him,
and thought I would see what he tasted like.”
I could not say too much to him. What about the innocent lambs
and calves, of which Sollie’s owners had partaken?
I had a fine large place in the basement for keeping pets, with an
earth floor, and a number of windows, and I did not propose to have
Sollie murder all the birds I might acquire. So, one end of this room
was wired off for him. He had a window in this cage overlooking the
garden, and it was large enough for me to go in and walk about,
while talking to him. He seemed happy enough there, and while
gazing into the garden or watching the rabbits, guineapigs, and
other pets in the large part of the room, often indulged in long,
contented spells of cooing—not hooting.
In 1902 I was obliged to leave him for a six months’ trip to
Europe. He was much petted by my sister, and I think spent most of
his time upstairs with the family. When I returned home I brought,
among other birds, a handsome Brazil cardinal. I stood admiring him
as he stepped out of his traveling cage and flew around the aviary.
Unfortunately, instead of choosing a perch, he flattened himself
against the wire netting in Sollie’s corner.
I was looking right at him and the owl, and I never saw anything
but lightning equal the celerity of Sollie’s flight, as he precipitated
himself against the netting and caught at my cardinal’s showy red
crest. The cardinal screamed like a baby, and I ran to release him,
marveling that the owl could so insinuate his little claws through the
fine mesh of the wire. However, he could do it, and he gripped the
struggling cardinal by the long, hair-like topknot, until I uncurled the
wicked little claws. A bunch of red feathers fell to the ground, and
the dismayed cardinal flew into a corner.
“Sollie,” I said, going into his cage and taking him in my hand,
“how could you be so cruel to that new bird?”
“Oh, coo, coo, coo, coo,” he replied in a delightfully soft little
voice, and gently resting his naughty little beak against my face.
“You had better come upstairs,” I said, “I am afraid to leave you
down here with that poor cardinal. You will be catching him again.”
He cooed once more. This just suited him, and he spent the rest
of his life in regions above. I knew that he would probably not live
as long in captivity as he would have done if his lot had been cast in
the California foothills. His life was too unnatural. In their native
state, owls eat their prey whole, and after a time disgorge pellets of
bones, feathers, hairs, and scales, the remnants of food that cannot
be digested.
 My owls, on account of their upbringing, wanted their food
cleaned for them. Betsy, one day, after much persuasion, swallowed
a mouse to oblige me, but she was such a dismal picture as she sat
for a long time with the tail hanging out of her beak that I never
offered her another.
I tried to keep Solomon in condition by giving him, or forcing him
to take, foreign substances, but my plan only worked for a time.
I always dreaded the inevitable, and one winter day in 1903 I
looked sharply at him, as he called to me when I entered the house
after being away for a few hours. “That bird is ill!” I said.
No other member of the family saw any change in him, but when
one keeps birds and becomes familiar with the appearance of each
one, they all have different facial and bodily expressions, and one
becomes extremely susceptible to the slightest change. As I
examined Sollie, my heart sank within me, and I began to inquire
what he had been eating. He had partaken freely of boiled egg,
meat, and charcoal. I gave him a dose of olive oil, and I must say
that the best bird or beast to take medicine is an owl. Neither he nor
Betsy ever objected in the least to opening their beaks and taking
any sort of a dose I was minded to give them.
The oil did him no good, and I saw that he was doomed. I kept
him beside me during the night, and at four o’clock in the morning
he died. Just at the last he opened his eyes, and there was the same
strange, luminous, beautiful appearance of the eye-ball that there
had been when Betsy died. I have seen many birds die, but have
never, except in the case of the owls, noticed this opening of the
eyes, with the curious illumination.
We missed the little fellow immensely, for he often insinuated his
pretty little cooing note in the midst of our family conversation. He
knew each one of us, and would call out when we came near him,
but a stranger he always received in silence, and with raised ear
tufts.
We tried not to mourn foolishly for our pet. The reproach is often
and justly brought against animal-lovers that they are over-sensitive
—that they love not wisely, but too well. We suffer, and the lower
creation suffers with us. We lie down and die, and so must they. The