The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1891-01-03
ANIMAL LANGUAGE.

Interesting Incidents In Proof OF the
Theory that tho Lowcr Animals Talk.
All domestic animals, living a life oi
routine, dependent on the care OF human
beings, and often, as in the.case OF COWS
and horses, with little chance to com
municate with others of their own kind,
use very limited vocabulary in their
everyday life; but any unusual circum'
stance produces new words, easily dis
tinguished by any one at all familiar
with their ordinary speech, The re-
marks Of my horse, for instance, will,
| for weeks, be noticeable for nothing but
their samepess; then he will give me a
most uncanny feeling by an entirely
new observation called out by some
change in feed or surroundings.
! Fowls have undoubtedly larger
vocabulary than any Of the other do
mesSic animals; yet in half day you
will probably hear from them all the
sounds that they use in ordinary life.
But any thing out of the ordinary Is in
stantly expressed in unusual sounds.
always know what is disturbing the
flock, whether dog, cat, hawk, or stran-
ger. The cry for hawk near at hand
and a hawk far off seems to be the same
word, but with different emphasis and
in different key. Woodchucks have
the same greeting as cats, but louder
and more emphatic. One day l was
startled by sounds from the yard which
/ had never heard before, and, rushing
to the rescue, found a tame red fox
dragging broken chain, trying to get
through the fence The new sentence
consisted of several words not compli-
mentary to foxes l have never heard
any thing like them since. Very tame
hens often show a desire to talk to you,
and it is usually possible to understand
their meaning. Once Cochin, whose
years and breeding entitled her to sep
arate perch came and stood in front of
me, looked me full in the face, and CON-
planned loudly OF something, could not
translate further. Patient investiga-
tion revealed that one end Of her
perch had slipped down, and Mrs. Buff
had no idea of sleeping on an inclined
plane. Another time nervous little
Leghorn met me at the hen-house door
fairly screaming and jumping with ex-
element l understood, from the cackie
which finished each sentence, that she
had been disturbed in her nest did
not wonder at her new powers of speech
when l found her nest occupied by my
cat and three small kittc,s.
When the chickens first begin to move
in the egg, just before Matching, the
mother hen sings to them low Groom
ing song very sweet, and never heard
at any other time. A friend tells me
that her canary startled her one day by
an entirely new call. 1t was so plainly
"Come here quick" that she hurried to
the cage to find an enormous cat, with
face pressed against the window-pane,
staring in at poor Ned-a danger suf-
ficiently great to account for the new
call.
There are but two ways by which one
can hear animals really converse One
is to listen to them when they are not
aware of your presence, always a diff
cult feat; the other is to win their en-
tire love and confidence. Hours of pa
tient coaXing would be needed before a
monkey would do more than Chatter
unintelligently, or scream angrily;"
and ''poking with a stick" seems a
rather unscientific way to produce the
desired result One can not help fancy
ing that Professor Gamers grapha-
phone holds nothing but varieties of
monkey profanity.
1t is curious reflection on the intelli-
gence of mankind that while animals
easily learn our language we make no
advance at all in learning theirs. One
can not help hoping that some future
generation of men may be sufficiently
kind and patient and large-hearted to
believe that what these dependent crea-
lures have to say to us may sometimes
be as important as what we have to
say to them and to act accordingly.
Y. Evening Post.