The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1891-05-16
ANIMAL LANGUAGE.

Theory that the Lower Animals Talk.
All domestic animals, living life OF
routine. dependent on the caro- Of human
beings, and often, as in the.case OF COWS
and horses, with little chance to COM
municato with others of their own kind,
use very limited vocabulary in their
cvory day lifo; but any unusual circum-
stance produces new words, easily dis
tinguished by any one at all familiar
with thoir ordinary speech. Tho re-
m arks OF my horse, for instance, will,
for weeks, be noticeable for nothing but
their sameness; then he will give me q
most uncanny feeling by an entirely
new observation called out by some
change in foed or surroundings.
Fowls have undoubtedly larger
vocabulary than any of the other do
nestle animals; yet in half a day you
will probably hear from them all the
sounds that they use in ordinary life.
But any thing out of tho ordinary is in
stantly expressed in unusual sounds. l
always know what is disturbing the
flock, whethor dog, cat, hawk or stran-
ger. The cry for hawk near at hand
and q hawk far off seems to DO the same
word. but with different emphasis And
in different koy. Woodchucks have
the samo greeting as cats, but louder
and moro emphatic. Ono day l was
startled by sounds from the yard which
had never heard before, and. rushing
to the rescue, I found tame red fox
dragging broken chain, trying to got
through the fence. Tho new sontonce
consisted of several words not compli-
mentary to foxes. l have never heard
any thing like them since. Very tame
hons often show desire to talk to you,
and it is usually possible to understand
thoir meaning. Once Cochin, whose
years and breeding entitled her to sep
arate perch came and stood in front OF
me, looked mo full in tho face, and com
planned loudly Of something, could not
translate further. Patient investiga-
ton revealed that ono end Of her
porch had slipped down, and Mrs. Buff
had no idoa of sleeping on an inclined
plane. Another timo nervous little
Leghorn met mo at the hcn-house door
fairly screaming and jumping with cx-
element | understood, from the 'cacklo
which finished each sentence, that sho
had been disturbed in her nest did
not wonder at her new powers of speech
when 1 found her nest occupied by my
cat and three small kittens.
Whom the chickens first begin to move
in the egg. just before Matching, the
mother hen sings to them low Groom
ing song, very swoet, and nover heard
at any other time. A friend tolls me
that her canary startled her ono 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 tho window-pane,
staring in at poor Ned "a danger suf-
ficiently great to account for tho new
call.
There are but two ways by which one
can hear animals really converse. Ono
is to listen to Thorn 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 TO needed before
monkey would do moro than 'chattor
unintelliSently," or scream angrily;"
and ''poking with stick" seems n
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 a curious reflection on the intelli-
Sence 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
BIO as important as what VIC havo to
say TO them and to act accordingly.-N
Y. Evening Post