How animals talk

by William J. Long

Since we are following a different trail, this is hardly the time or place to face the question how this development from mere living to conscious life took place, even if one were wise or rash enough to grapple with the final problem of evolution. Yet it may not be amiss while we “rest a pipe,” as the voyageurs say, to point out that, of the two possible answers to our question (aside from the convenient and restful answer that God made things so), only one, curiously enough, has thus far been considered by our physical scientists. The thousand books and theories of evolution which one reads are all reducible to this elementary proposition: that the simple things of life became complex by inner necessity. In other words, an eye became an eye, or an oak an oak, or a man a man, simply because each must develop according to the inner law of its being.

That may be true, though the all-compelling “inner law” is still only a vague assumption, and the mystery of its origin is untouched; but why not by outer compulsion as reasonably as by inner necessity? A cell-of-life that was constantly bombarded by moving particles of matter might be compelled to develop a sense of touch, in order to save its precious life by differentiating such particles [[87]]into good and bad, or helpful and harmful. A cell over which vibrations of air and ether were continually passing might be forced for its own good to develop an ear and an eye to receive such vibrations as sound and light; and a cell over which mysterious waves of thought and emotion were ceaselessly flowing might be driven to comprehend that particular mystery by developing a thought and emotion of its own.

I do not say that this is the right answer; I mention it merely as a speculative possibility, in order to get our alleged scientific mind out of its deep rut of habit by showing that every road has two sides, though a man habitually use only one; and that Reason or Law or God, or whatever you choose to call the ultimate mainspring of life, is quite as apt to be found on one side of the road as on the other. Inner necessity is not a whit more logical or more explanatory than external force or compulsion when we face the simple fact that an animal now sees and feels in the light instead of merely existing in darkness, or that primitive cells which were dimly sentient have now become as thinking gods, knowing good and evil.

What this thought of ours is we do not know. Beyond the fact that we have it and use it, thought still remains a profound mystery. That it is a living force of some kind; that it projects itself [[88]]or its waves outward, as the sun cannot but send forth his light; that it affects men as surely as gravitation or heat or the blow of a hammer affects them,—all this is reasonably clear and certain. But how thought travels; what refined mental ether conveys it outward with a speed that makes light as slow as a glacier by comparison, and with a force that sends it through walls of stone and into every darkness that the light cannot penetrate,—this and the origin of thought are questions so deep that our science has barely formulated them, much less dreamed of an answer. Yet if we once grant the simple proposition that thought is a force, that it moves inevitably from its source to its object, the conclusion is inevitable that any thinking mind should be able to send its silent message to any other mind in the universe. There is nothing in the nature of either mind or matter to preclude such a possibility; only our present habit of speech, of too much speech, prevents us from viewing it frankly.

As a purely speculative consummation, therefore, the time may come when telepathy shall appear as the natural or perfect communication among enlightened minds, and language as a temporary or evolutionary makeshift. But that beckons us away to an imaginative flight among the clouds, and on the earth at our feet is the trail we must follow. [[89]]

The question why our dogs, if they have the faculty of receiving a master’s message at a distance, do not use it more obviously, is one that I cannot answer. Perhaps the reason is obvious enough to some of the dogs, which have a sidelong way of coming home from their roving, as if aware they had long been wanted. Or, possibly, the difficulty lies not in the dog, but in his master. Every communication has two ends, one sending, the other receiving; and of a thousand owners there are hardly two who know how properly to handle a dog either by speech or by silence. Still again, one assumption implied in the question is that dogs or any other animals of the same kind are all alike; and that common assumption is very wide of the fact. Animals differ as widely in their instinctive faculties as men in their judgments; which partly explains why one setter readily follows his master’s word or hand, or enters into his mood, while another remains hopelessly dumb or unresponsive. The telepathic faculty appears more frequently, as we shall see, among birds or animals that habitually live in flocks or herds, and I have always witnessed its most striking or impressive manifestation between a mother animal and her young, as if some prenatal influence or control were still at work.

For example, I have occasionally had the good [[90]]luck to observe a she-wolf leading her pack across the white expanse of a frozen lake in winter; and at such times the cubs have a doggish impulse to run after any moving object that attracts their attention. If a youngster breaks away to rush an animal that he sees moving in the woods (once that moving animal was myself), the mother heads him instantly if he is close to her; but if he is off before she can check him by a motion of her ears or a low growl, she never wastes time or strength in chasing him. She simply holds quiet, lifts her head high, and looks steadily at the running cub. Suddenly he wavers, halts, and then, as if the look recalled him, whirls and speeds back to the pack. If the moving object be proper game afoot, the mother now goes ahead to stalk or drive it, while the pack follows stealthily behind her on either side; but if the distant object be a moose or a man, or anything else that a wolf must not meddle with, then the mother wolf trots quietly on her way without a sound, and the errant cub falls into place as if he had understood her silent command.

You may observe the same phenomenon of silent order and ready obedience nearer home, if you have patience to watch day after day at a burrow of young foxes. I have spent hours by different dens, and have repeatedly witnessed what seemed to be excellent discipline; but I have never yet [[91]]heard a vixen utter a growl or cry or warning of any kind. That audible communication comes later, when the cubs begin to hunt for themselves; and then you will often hear the mother’s querulous squall or the cubs’ impatient crying when they are separated in the dark woods. While the den is their home (they seldom enter it after they once roam abroad) silence is the rule, and that silence is most eloquent. For hours at a stretch the cubs romp lustily in the afternoon sunshine, some stalking imaginary mice or grasshoppers, others challenging their mates to mock fights or mock hunting; and the most striking feature of the exercise, after you have become familiar with the fascinating little creatures, is that the old vixen, who lies apart where she can overlook the play and the neighborhood, seems to have the family under perfect control at every instant, though never a word is uttered.

That some kind of communication passes among these intelligent little brutes is constantly evident; but it is without voice or language. Now and then, when a cub’s capers lead him too far from the den, the vixen lifts her head to look at him intently; and somehow that look has the same effect as the she-wolf’s silent call; it stops the cub as if she had sent a cry or a messenger after him. If that happened once, you might overlook it as a [[92]]matter of mere chance; but it happens again and again, and always in the same challenging way. The eager cub suddenly checks himself, turns as if he had heard a command, catches the vixen’s look, and back he comes like a trained dog to the whistle.

As the shadows lengthen on the hillside, and the evening comes when the mother must go mousing in the distant meadow, she rises quietly to her feet. Instantly the play stops; the cubs gather close, their heads all upturned to the greater head that bends to them, and there they stand in mute intentness, as if the mother were speaking and the cubs listening. For a brief interval that tense scene endures, exquisitely impressive, while you strain your senses to catch its meaning. There is no sound, no warning of any kind that ears can hear. Then the cubs scamper quickly into the burrow; the mother, without once looking back, slips away into the shadowy twilight. At the den’s mouth a foxy little face appears, its nostrils twitching, its eyes following a moving shadow in the distance. When the shadow is swallowed up in the dusk the face draws back, and the wild hillside is wholly silent and deserted.