Inarticulate cries are all pretty much the same to us; their inflections, duration, pitch, abruptness, and prolongation alone can inform us of their purpose. But experience and close attention have shown us the connection of these variations with the acts that accompany or precede them. Animals evidently understand these inflections at once. We cannot better compare the language of animals than with what takes place in a pleasant sport, a kind of pantomime of the voice or language which many youth doubtless understand, and which I venture to refer to here to aid in more easily conceiving of the communication of thought among animals by sounds which seem to us all alike. When I was engaged in hospitals, the evenings in the guard room were sometimes enlivened by the presence of a companion who excelled in humorous mimicry. He would represent a man in liquor who had stopped at a fountain that flowed with a gentle sound, somewhat like that of his own hiccough. A single oath, pronounced in different tones, was sufficient to enable us to comprehend all the impressions, all the states of mind through which this devotee of Bacchus passed. The oath, at first pronounced slowly and with an accent expressing relief, represented a feeling of satisfaction, with shadings of prolonged exclamation which it would be hard for one to imagine without suggestion. The continued flowing of the fountain made our drunken man impatient, and he wanted it to stop. This state of mind was translated by a new modulation of the same word. In a little while the gurgling of the fountain produced astonishment. Was it possible that he, with all the liquid he had imbibed, could vomit so much and for so long a time? This mental condition was expressed by a new modulation of the same oath. The first movement of surprise over, resignation follows, and our man decides to wait patiently for the end. A period of half lethargy was easily represented by the slowness and weakness of the man's voice while living up to this decision; but when he comes out of this sleepy condition and hears the fountain again, he is possessed with fear; he cannot understand the flood he is pouring out—he dares not move—he believes he is lost. Gradually the fumes of the liquor pass away, and, his mistake being recognized, the drunkard is taken with a laughing and a gayety which are indicated by the same oath repeated in tones corresponding with the satisfaction he is then enjoying. This making the series of impressions a man passes through comprehensible by a single word, varied in pronunciation and utterance, is very like the language of animals, which is always the same, and the significance of which is given by variety of intonations corresponding with sensational conditions.
The mewing of the cat is always the same; but what a number of mental conditions it expresses! I had a kitten whose gambols and liveliness entertained me greatly. I understood well, when it came up to me mewing, what the sound meant; sometimes the kitten wanted to come up and sleep in my lap; at other times it was asking me to play with it. When, at my meals, it jumped on my knees, turned round, looked at me, and spoke in a coaxing and flattering way, it was asking for something to eat. When its mother came up with a mouse in her jaws, her muffled and low-toned mew informed the little one from a distance, and caused it to spring and run up to the game that was brought to it. The cry is always the same, but varied in the strength of the inflections and in its protraction, so as to represent the various states of mind with which my young animal is moved—just as it was with the drunken man in the mimicry scene. These facts are probably well known to all observers of animals.
We have seen that this tonality of the watch dog's cries is competent to indicate that a person is coming to the house. We find similar cries of warning uttered by birds. When I was a professor in the faculty of Lille, I frequently visited the well known aged Professor of Physics, M. Delezenne. He had a working room at the end of a garden, in which a laughing mew wandered. From the time that any one came in till he went out, this bird made the vocal explosions to which it owes its name; and the good professor was certain, without ever being mistaken, that somebody was coming to his laboratory. He was notified. My Jaco in Paris has a warble that answers the ringing of the bell. If we have not heard the bell, we are notified by Jaco of its ringing, and, going to the door, find some one there. I have been told of a parrot belonging to the steward of a lyceum which had heard the words "Come in," when any one rang the bell. He never failed to cry, "Come in," when the bell moved, and the visitor was embarrassed at seeing nobody after having been invited to open the door.
Instances in which the cries of birds had an incontestable and precise signification are numerous; let me refer to a few of the best known. The cackle of a hen, after having laid an egg and left her nest, is decidedly characteristic. Her clucking when she is impelled to sit on her eggs, or when she is calling her chicks, is no less demonstrative. There is not a farmer who does not recognize it and understand it. In these things we see the relation between the tone of the prating or cluck of the hen and her acts. But when a nightingale sings all night, or a goldfinch whistles, or a raven croaks, we cannot so easily interpret the significance of their inarticulate sounds. The finch calls its mate by uttering a few notes followed by a long trill. Matches of a barbarous character, based on this habit, I were held in the north of France while I was living at Lille, between 1855 and 1860. I do not know whether they have been suppressed or not, but the laws for the protection of animals ought to take cognizance of them. The gamesters put out the eyes of the male finches, and made them, thus blinded, compete as singers, for which purpose they brought their cages into proximity. When the birds heard and recognized one another's voices, they made their appeal to the female; the one that renewed his amorous trills most frequently, protracted them longest and to the last, gained the prize. The bird that was declared victor received a medal amid the applause of a large and enthusiastic crowd; and considerable wagers were staked upon the result. I have heard that these poor blinded birds sometimes fell down exhausted with singing, and kept on calling the absent female till they died, not being willing to yield to a rival, who on his side was also keeping up his equally useless appeals.
These finch contests were suggested after the meaning of the song of the birds was learned. But when these birds, which are more usually isolated—whence they have been named Fringilla cœlebs, or celibates—hop around our houses and also utter their amorous trills at another than the mating season, they are evidently not calling the female. Should we not then seek to determine by the tone whether their call, which is always the same, is amorous or not?
In countries where flocks of turkeys are raised one can learn very quickly from their gobblings when they have captured a hare. If they meet him standing still or lying down, they form in a circle around him, and, putting their heads down, repeat continually their peculiar cries. The hare remains quiet, and it is sometimes possible to take him up, terrorized as he is in the midst of the black circle of gobbling beaks and heads. The language of the turkeys is at that time incontestably significant. It is warlike, and similar to that of the males when they are fighting. In the present instance they have joined for war, and they make it on the frightened hare.
My Jaco, like all parrots, which are excellent imitators, pronounces a few words and repeats them over and over again. Such birds amuse us because the words they know sometimes happen to be ludicrously fitting. A bird of this kind had been struck by the note sounded by the wind blowing into a room through a crack in the glass work whenever a certain door was opened; and he had become so perfect in his imitation that they sometimes, on hearing the noise, went to shut the door when it was not open.
Jaco formerly belonged to a very pious old lady who was accustomed to say her litanies with another person. He had caught the words "Pray for us," in the invocations to the several saints, and said them so well as sometimes to deceive his learned mistress, and cause her to think she was saying her litanies with two colleagues. When Jaco was out of food, and any one passed by him, he would say, "My poor Cocotte!" or "My poor rat!" in an arch, mawkish, protracted tone that indicated very clearly what he wanted, and that his drinking cup was empty. There was no doubt in the house as to his meaning; and whenever one heard it he said: "He has nothing to eat." He was exceedingly fond of fresh pits of apples and pears, and I was in the habit of collecting them and keeping them to give him. So whenever, as I came near him, I put my hand into my pocket he never failed to say: "Poor Cocco!" in a supplicating tone which it was impossible to mistake. A sugar plum is a choice morsel to him. He can tell what it is from a distance when I hold it out in my fingers; and when I give it to him he cannot restrain himself if it has been any considerable time since he has had the delicacy. Usually, after having made the first motion to get it, as if he were ravished and wanted to express his joy in advance, he would draw back before taking it, and say, in a comical tone, "Hold, my poor Cocotte!" His manner of thanking in advance is likewise amusing. The expression of his eyes and the pose of his head are all in accord with the tone of his exclamation. When he tastes the plum he utters a series of ahs, and produces a kind of warble by prolonging some of his notes and shortening up others. We find in these examples, without doubt, that the articulate voice makes us better able to judge the meaning of the impressions that are moving the animal than inarticulate cries, or merely musical sounds. When Jaco met a child for whom he had a great affection, he would promenade on his perch, or turn the wheel, spreading out his tail and ruffling the feathers of his head, while his eyes grew red with excitement if the child was too slow in bestowing the accustomed caress. Then he would stop, bend down his head, and, looking at his friend, say pleasantly, "Jaco," in a tone and with a manner quite in contrast with the pronunciation of the same word when he was hungry.
It is not the word he speaks that is of interest; he might have been taught another, and it would have been the same; but it is the tone. In this case, too, the articulation gives an easier clew to the meaning the bird seeks to express, having a meaning according to the manner of pronouncing it, than any isolated, simply musical sound, like the song of the nightingale, canary bird, and warbler. This became evident to me, not from observing animals for a few moments without seeing them again, but from studying them continuously.
Jaco did not like solitude, and was talkative and fond of being caressed, like all of his kind. One day, when there was no one in the country house, all having gone out into the garden or the fields, I heard him saying over what few words he knew, in different inflections. I went quietly into the room where he was, without being seen; but he heard my steps, although I walked in very cautiously, hoping to surprise him. He ceased his chatter, listened, and, after a silence, pronounced "Jaco" in a low tone, drawing out the end of the word. He listened again, and repeated the word in the same tone; then, after another silence, repeated it with a rise of the voice. I continued observing him, and, as he heard no one, he raised his tone gradually, repeating the same word, and ended at last with a genuine cry of distress. The people ran in from without, supposing something had happened to him. He then repeated his name in a lower tone, which seemed to indicate his satisfaction at finding his isolation ended. I went in myself, and his prattle unmistakably betrayed his gladness at being no longer alone.