Waterbury evening Democrat., 1891-01-15
ANIMAL LANGUAGE.

Interesting Incidents In Proof of the Theory that the Lower Animals Talk. All domestic animals, living a life of 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 sameness; 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 a larger vocabulary than any of the other do- mestic 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, est, hawk, or stran- ger. The cry for hawk near at hand and hawk far of 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 I was startled by sounds from the yard which had never heard before, and, rushing to the rescue, found 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 desire to talk to you, and it is usually possible to understand their meaning. Once a Cochin, whose years and breeding entitled her to a sep arate perch came and stood in front of me, looked me full in the face, and com plained 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 a nervous little Leghorn met me at the hen-house door fairly screaming and jumping with ex- citement. understood, from the 'cackle which finished each sentence, that she had been disturbed in her nest did not wonder at her new powers of speech when found her nest occupied by my cat and three small kittens.
 When the chickens first begin to move in the egg, just before matching. the mother hen sings to them low croon- ing song, very sweet, and never heard that her canary startled her one day by an entirely new call. It 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.
 It 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.-N Y. Evening Post