The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-01-24

some natural,slts who have tried them
 With every kind of sound and noise deny that they can hear Others, equally confident, assert that they are
 very sensIuive to the call of their queen | at least
 Some of the mollusks have very re-
 markabls organs for hearing, A good
 instance is the garden slug. In its neck | you would see, under a microscope, a | pair of gsobules filled with a clear fluid.
 In thei!e are minute ear stones which swing to and for, rotate and start off,
 first in one direction and then in an- other, but in mo instance striking the waills of the cavity. If the globules are ruptursd the motions cease. The inn | aginatlon' will ask whether El1ellfish, or | mollusks, can produce sounds which can | be mutually heard. Whatever may be true of the dNvislon as a whoCe, it is 1 certainly true that some can emit | rounds. Two SSa slugs were found by | Professor Grant to make sounds which he compared to the clink of a steel wire on the side of the jar" Cuttletish have ears which follow the plan of the | mollsuk's organ; and, indeed, as one watches the uncanny looking octopus in @ coraer of a rock cavity, it is easy to imagine that while 9ooking at you with that g0assy eye he is also listening to Whaie you say. A careful angler tells you not to talk
 while you are fishing. Probably a quiet | conversation will do no harm, but 1t must be remembered that fisheIs have ears, although sound from the air may not reach them. One of the oddest ar engagements of all is found in some fishes. The air bladder sends off flores which are attached to membranes stretched across cavities i'm the skull, and from 'tihsse membranes the vibra- tions of sound are are conveyed to the air bladder. Such is the case with the perch; while, more strange still, in the
 carp three 1itt5e bones aid the transmits
 sion of sound.
 The ears of toads and frogs begin to approach the type with which we are | most familiar, and very effective ears l they are, too for a pelh- toad I kept for
 several years would always come from hds hiding place when I made low missing sound.
 l Addei's may be deaf or hard of hear | ing, but reptiles are furnished with ears, and among them the crocodile has the | rudiment of anl outer ear Birds, as evrybody knows, can hear very readily, and the external cavity is easily found | If the feathers on the side of the skull are raised. Amy one fortunate enough l to get hold of an owl may see a very | remarkable opening leading to. the | drum, but the tuft Of feathers which adorri5 the head on each side Tn some 1 species cannot be regarded as in any way analogous to our own folds of car- tl4age.
 In whales the drum of the ear lies at the end of a very long borSy tube, rem
 dered stila longer by the taitck fatty tis- sue which is superposed. This tube Is also very narrow. a necessary precau- tfon, seeing that sounds made in the water are conveyed with such intense power. Aftl1ough 1t is very probable thtt a whale a few feet below the surface would riot hear a hundred ton gun fired from the shore over the water, the blows made in the water by a paddle wheel would resollnd in its typarur1 If unpro- tected. just as the sound of the cannon would in ours if We stood at some little tiastanlce
 It as amusing to sit quietly on the paIt- skirts of a wood on a gumrner's even- ing, and watch the rabbits steal out to feed. They sit up on their halinches
 and move their ears to every point of
 the compass in a wonderful way. Cats have d marvellous sense rf learfng, and
 the slightest rustic attract sStheir notice. Even when apparently asleep, a mouse creeping behind the walfiscot makes them start tip Into activity. The hairs which fill the opening of the external ear are so sensitive that if they are Nightly touched tlhs animal shuddeTs. Observe how t[1e horse, mule and ass move their ears. If you take your stand by a horses side you will see the open l Ing is placed to the front, the side, the rear, in turnisl with a quick, nervous motion; and not only so, the two ears
 do not move i'm unison, but have each an independent action. Careful pbser- | vathon has convinced me that none of our domestic animals, and so far as my | experience in the field and geological coDaectiuns goes, no wild animal has a l greater power of movement in the outer ear than a horse has. We cannot, as a l rule, move our external ears. except in
 a very slight degree by 'twatching" the I whole of the muscles of the face. have, however. known two persons among my owln acquaintances who