Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1904-03-21
LANGUAGE CT ANIMALS.
Some Of the Lower Creatures Able to
Initiate sounds.

Initiate sounds.
The cries Of animals are a species
of natural language. according to Il
writer In Forest and Stream The
older grammarians, | remember taught
us that crying, weeping. laughing. etc,
were examples Of natural language;
they were expressive OF feeling
natural to men and were understood
by all intuitively. The origin of spoken
or artificial language. as it is called,
Is II large subject and do not propose
all forms Of natural language. includ-
ing the cries of beasts and birds. are,
as the term implies natural to them,
that Is. born with them; and the spe-
cific cry Of any species must be de-
termined by some peculiarities of the
ample, n crow crOaks and rooster
crows, because by the peculiar
structure Of their vocal arrangements.
they can utter those sounds more read
lily than any other. Yet. by training
and effort. some OF the lower creation
other sounds than those most natural
to them, just as the first natural out
cries Of the infant give way through
culture to the myriad utterances OF
artificial language.
The bawling Of COW and the roar
and, as things stand now. the sound
uttered by one Of these animals would
be quite impossible to the other; yet,
as | read Darwin. either Of these out
cries might in time come to be the
natural cry Of the other. II the two
to live peacefully together and to the
lion it should become apparent that the
voice of the COW would be of great
value to him. say in the matter of
securing his food there is no reason
to doubt that he might in the course
generation to generation. come at
length to possess the dulcet notes OF the
COW.
If the giraffe. which was originally
only a large. antelope. has developed his
high forequarters. his elongated neck
and his long. flexible upper lip. from
his efforts to browse on the higher
branches of the trees. and if the
founder, which when young has it,
eyes on the opposite sides Of its head.
as any well-regulated fish would be ex-
pected to have. is able through long
continued effort to transfer the eye
that rests disagreeably on the sands
around to the other side Of it's head,
where 1t may be of some service. there
is no telling what varieties or modifi-
cations of voice or shape may be
wrought in nature in the course of the
ages.
hut let us have no meandering. A
kitten cries out, because in common
with nearly all animals 1t is furnished
with a certain vocal apparatus. and its
cry takes the popularity Of new,
because that sound best responds to
its special vocal apparatus. Hence.
and especially in view Of the little in
cident which have related | am leh
to believe that the young of any ami
nal utters the same cry as its mother
and not from imitation. think
young rooster crows and a young hen
cackles. not in imtatiO OF their elders,
but. like the poet who "lisped in num-
bers," because the numbers came"
Imagine If Robinson Crusoe had landed
on his solitary island with good
fresh -laid hens egg in his pocket, and
he had put 1t to hatch under his pet
parrot. the rooster. II such had come
forth, would have crowed out Justify
Of summer morning. and never would
have learned to say Poor Poll." in the
world.