“Oh! but birds can’t think, uncle,” I said.
“How do you know?”
Well, of course I did not know, and could produce no argument in support of my case. So I looked up at him at last in a puzzled way and saw that he was smiling.
“You can’t answer that question, Nat,” he said. “It is one of the matters that science sees no way of compassing. Still, I feel certain that birds have a good deal of sense.”
“But you don’t think they can talk to one another, do you, uncle?”
“No, it cannot be called talking; but they have certain ways of communicating one with the other, as anyone who has taken notice of domestic fowls can see. What is more familiar than the old hen’s cry to her chickens when she has found something eatable? and then there is the curious call uttered by all fowls when any large bird that they think is a bird of prey flies over them.”
“Oh! yes, I’ve heard that, uncle,” I said.
“I remember an old hen uttering that peculiar warning note one day in a field, Nat, and immediately every chicken feeding near hurried off under the hedges and trees, or thrust their heads into tufts of grass to hide themselves from the hawk.”
“That seems to show, uncle, that they do understand.”
“Yes, they certainly comprehend a certain number of cries, and it is a sort of natural language that they have learned for their preservation.”