The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1903-12-31
ANIMALS SETON KNOWS
Lover of Wild Beasts Declares
That They Do Talk.
IGNORES BURROUGHS ORITIOIsMs

satIOn-IellS why cartridges sleep
In Snow and Minks Slide Down
Hill.
Ernest Thompson Seton, whom John
Burroughs, the famous naturalist, re.
Gently denounced as a sham in the At
lantic Monthly, said the other day, &C
cording to Milwaukee special dis
patch to the Chicago Inter Ocean, that
II have not seen the article" he said,
'and do not want to, and further than
a denial Of the accusations Burroughs
makes | do not wish to discuss the
question. The attack is very unpleas-
ant to me and unfair and l cannot I'M
derstand it. Mr.. Burroughs and | used
to be good friends, and this sudden
change is beyond me. / know nothing
about the particulars Of the attack, and
do not care to investigate them.'
When told that Mr.. Burroughs said
that it was untrue and absurd that a
fox sought safety from q pack Of
hounds by jumping upon the back Of
q sheep and riding several hundred
yards, Mr.. Seton said he had nothing
to say. Mr.. Burroughs also said in his
article that it was all bosh to think
that fox or skunk reasons pro-
fOundly or that these animals use Jymi-
raculously analytical strategy or that a
bear philosophers sou.fully. He also
says that the animals Seton has known
have been known by no one else and
that Seton has so deftly blended fact
and fiction that only a real woodsman
can separate them and that Seton has
been palming off a lot of ridiculous
statements. Mr.. Seton insists, how
ever, that wild animals reason and
talk, saying on this subject:
ut is often asked if wild animals
have any mode of conversation, and /
answer unhesitatingly that they have.
Out on the stretches of prairie in the
heart of the Dakotas 1 have made ex-
tensive studies of the wolf. l say un-
hesitatingly that it has a most perfect
ed form Of conversation. There is the
rallying cry and the hunting song, the
plaintive yap-yap-yapping Of the even
song and the triumphant call of the
view halloo.
"All are distinctly marked, and the
one brings forth the responsive note Of
the other. There is the call of the
mother to her young, the male to the
female and the answers In each case.
There are at least five distinctly sepa-
rate notes which have recorded. And
I have tried them in the ZOOS of Gin
cinnati and New York, and In each case
the one call brought out its response
as though the heat and hustle Of the
city were miles away and in its place
stretched the reaches of prairie land
with it's cover of snow.
II have conversed with plainsmen on
the subject All agree with me. So
common are these events and so mat
ter of place have they become that
their significance has been lost to many
Of the men. But when / inquired and
directed their attention to this matter
they agreed with me- DR.. Garner has
noted twenty-six separate noises used
by the chimpanzee in conveying ideas.
He has conveyed those ideas to them
by their use. / have done the same
with the gray wolf Of Dakota. If we
can recognize a number of sounds used
in animal land for purposes of CONVEX
iS no hi hot no
three or four times as many which our
ears have not the finesse to grasp. Ami
mails can talk. Their language is more
simple and very rudimental Man is
the only animal that can converse as
we understand the term. But animals
have means Of conveying ideas one to
another by means of sound.
81 am often asked" continued Mr.
Seton, "why the partridge sleeps bur-
fed in the snow in the winter in Mani
toba, why the mink slides down hill in
stead Of running down, why a deer
never passes a tamarack tree If he can
help it and why fox has a big, bushy
tail.
Cup in Manitoba, where I made my
observations, it is extremely cold. The
partridge knows instinctively that if
he attempts to sleep on the branch of a
tree in the awful frost he will be fro
zen before morning, and so lie burrows
into a snowdrift and sleeps warm there.
"The mink slides down the hill be-
cause he is in hurry. Fly turning
himself into toboggan he gets down
the hill in a second where it would
take three minutes to run down. r
have traced the mink for miles and
invariably noticed that he has slid
down the hills.
"a tamarack is a danger signal to a
heavy animal because it grows on the
edge of or in the midst of a bog The
bog is not solid enough to support an
animal as heavy as a deer, and the lat
ter instinctively knows it.
''The fox's big, bushy tail is fur
nished him to protect his feet and nose,
the five spots that are not covered
with fur. The further north / go the
bigger is the fox's bushy tail. My
shanty in the northwest was on
prairie in sight of a winter runway
for foxes. coyotes and occasionally a
gray wolf. Hunting most of the time,