How animals talk

by William J. Long

A little dog had followed me that day, keeping out of sight till we were far from home, when he showed himself in a waggish way, as if he knew I would not have the heart to tie him up in that lonely place, as he deserved. All day long he had a vociferous and a “bully” time making a nuisance of himself, stirring up a hornets’ nest in every peaceful spot, chasing deer out of sight with a blithe rowdydow, swimming out to the raft on which I was fly-fishing, jumping in to get tangled in my landing-net when I reached for a big trout—in twenty ways showing that his business was to take care of me, though he was no dog of mine.

Late in the afternoon, as I rested beside the homeward trail, the little dog rambled off by himself, still looking for trouble, like all his breed. Presently there was a yelp, a scurry, a glimpse of broad wings swooping, and back came the trouble-seeker like a streak, his eyes saying, “Look at this thing I brought you!” and his ears flapping like a pair of wings to help him along. Over him hovered a big barred-owl, grim as fate, striking, missing, mounting, swooping again, brushing me with [[216]]his wings as he whirled around my head. Between my heels and the log on which I was sitting my protector wedged himself securely; the owl with a vicious snapping of his beak sailed up into an evergreen and made himself invisible. In a moment or two the little dog came out and was wagging his tail mightily over the adventure when the owl slanted down on noiseless wings and struck a double set of claws into him. Then I interfered, rising to my feet; and then, for the first time I think, the owl saw me as something other than a stump and vanished quickly in the spruce woods.

Hawks likewise have marvelous eyes for all things that move; but I began to question the quality of their vision one day when I was watching a deer, and a red-shouldered hawk lit so near me that I reached out a hand and caught him.

Another afternoon I came upon a goshawk, keenest of all the falcons, that had just killed a grouse in the tote-road I was following. He darted away as I came round a bend; but thinking he might soon return, for he is a bold and a persistent kind of pirate, I entered the woods at a swift walk, as if going away. Then I worked cautiously back to the road through a thicket, and waited on a log in deep shadow, some fifty yards above where the grouse lay undisturbed. [[217]]Luckily I had a rifle, an accurate little twenty-two, often carried as medicine for “vermin,” and I intended to kill the goshawk at the first chance. He is the viking among birds, and as such has a romantic interest; but wherever he appears he is a veritable pest, the most destructive of the hungry hordes that come down from the North to play havoc with our game.

For a long time the goshawk hovered about, sweeping on tireless wings high above the trees; but though I was quiet enough to deceive any bird or beast, he held warily aloof. Once he disappeared, remaining so long away that I was beginning to think he had wearied of the game of patience, when I heard an eery call and saw him wheeling over the road again. His absence became clear a little later when he perched on a blasted pine, far out of range, where he remained watching for fifteen or twenty minutes, his only motion being an occasional turning of the head. That he was hungry and bound to have his own was plain enough; the puzzle was why he did not come and get it, for it seemed highly improbable that he would notice a motionless figure at that distance. I think now that he was sailing high over my head when I re-entered the trail; that he knew where I was all the time, not because he saw me on the log, but because he did not see me [[218]]go away. Before sunset he headed off toward the mountain, going early to roost with all his kind.

Dawn found me back on the old road, as much to test the matter of vision as to put an end to the game-destroyer. As a precaution I had changed clothes, and now shifted position, avoiding the log because the wary bird would surely take a look at it before coming down. My stand was a weathered stump beside the road, against which I sat on a carpet of moss, without concealment of any kind. At a short distance lay the grouse, a poor crumpled thing, just as he had wilted under the hawk’s swoop.

Thus a half-hour or more passed comfortably. A gorgeous cock-partridge sauntered into the open, saw me when I nodded to him, and went slowly off with that graceful, balancing motion which a grouse affects when he is well satisfied with himself. Then, as the sun rose, there was a swift-moving shadow, a rustle of pinions; the goshawk swept down the road in front of me and lit beside his game. He was a handsome bandit, in full adult plumage; his gray breast was penciled in shadowy lines, while his back was a foggy blue, as if in his northern home he had caught the sheen of the heavens above and of rippling waters beneath his flight. His folded wings stood out squarely from his shoulders with an impression of power, [[219]]like an eagle’s. There was something noble in his poise, in his challenging eye, in the forward thrust of his fierce head; but the spell was broken at the first step. He moved awkwardly, unwillingly it seemed; his great curving talons interfered with his footing when he touched the earth.

This time, instead of a rifle, there was a trim shotgun across my knees. The hawk was mine whether he stood quiet or leaped into swift flight, and feeling sure of him now I watched awhile, wondering whether he would break up his game with his claws, as some owls do, or tear it to pieces with his hooked beak. For a moment he did neither, but stood splendidly alert over his kill. Once he turned his head completely around over either shoulder, sweeping his piercing glance over me, but seeing nothing unusual. Then he seized his game in one foot and struck his beak into the breast, making the feathers fly as he laid the delicate flesh open. When I found myself weakening, growing sentimental at the thought that it was his last meal, his last taste of freedom and the wild, I remembered the grouse and got quietly on my feet. Though busy with his feast, he caught the first shadow of a motion; I can still see the gleam in his wild eyes as he sprang aloft.

I thought him beyond all harm as he lay on his back, one outstretched wing among the feathers [[220]]of his victim; but he struck like a flash when I reached down for him carelessly. “Take that! and that! and remember me!” he said, driving his weapons up with astonishing force, a force that kills or paralyzes his game at the first grip. Four of his needle-pointed talons went to the bone, and the others were well buried in the flesh of my arm. The old viking had been some time with his ancestors before I pried him loose.

As for the sense of smell, on which most animals depend for accurate information, I have tried numerous experiments with deer, moose, bear and other creatures to learn how far they can wind a man, and how their powers compare one with another. There is no definite answer to the problem, so baffling are the conditions of observing these shy beasts; but you are in for some surprises, at least, when you attempt to solve it in the open. You will learn, for example, that when a gale is blowing the animals are more at sea than in a dead calm; or that in a gusty wind you can approach them about as easily from one side as from another. Such a wind rolls and eddies violently, rebounding from every hill or point or shore in such erratic fashion that the animals have no means of locating a danger when they catch a fleeting sniff of it. It is for this reason, undoubtedly, that all game is uncommonly [[221]]wild on a windy day: the constant motion of leaves or tossing boughs breeds confusion in their eyes, and the woodsy smells are so broken by cross-currents that they cannot be traced to their source. So it has happened more than once on a gusty day that a deer, catching my scent on the rebound, has whirled and rushed straight at me, producing the momentary illusion that he was charging.