It is doubtless much easier to deny such a conclusion than to prove or disprove it; but denial is commonly the first refuge of ignorance and the last of dogmatism, and with these we are not concerned. I do not know whether Garner claims too much or too little for his monkeys; I have never had opportunity to test the matter in the jungle, and the caged monkeys with which I have occasionally experimented are too debased of habit or too imbecile in their affections to interest one who has long dealt with clean wild brutes. At times, however, when I have watched a monkey with an organ-grinder, I have noticed that the unhappy little beast displays a lively interest in the chitter of chimney-swifts—a lingo which to my dull ears sounds remarkably like monkey-talk. But that is a mere impression, momentary and of little value; while Garner speaks soberly after long and immensely patient observation.
To return to first-hand evidence: among wild creatures of my acquaintance the crows come [[13]]nearer than any others to something remotely akin to human speech. Several times I have known a tame crow to learn a few of our words and, what is much more significant, to show his superiority over parrots and other mere mimics by using one or more of the words intelligently. There was one crow, for example, that would repeat the word “hungry” in guttural fashion whenever he thought it was time for him to dine. He used this word very frequently when his dinner or supper hour drew nigh, giving me the impression, since he did not confuse it with two other words of his vocabulary, that he associated the word with the notion of food or of eating; and if this impression be true to fact, it indicates more than appears on the surface. We shall come to the wild crows and their “talk” presently; the point here is, that if this bird could use a new human word in association with a primal need, there is nothing to prevent him from using a sound or symbol of his own in the same way. In other words, he must have some small faculty of language.
Another tame crow, which an imaginative boy named Pharaoh Necho because of his hippety-hop walk, proved himself inordinately fond of games, play, social gatherings of every kind. To excitement from any source, whether bird or brute or human, he was as responsive as a weather-vane; [[14]]but his play ran mostly to mischief, or to something that looked like joking, since he could never see a contemplative cat or a litter of sleepy little pigs without going out of his way to tweak a tail and stir up trouble. At times he would watch, keeping out of sight in a leafy tree or on the roof of the veranda, till Tabby, the house cat, came out and sat looking over the yard, her tail stretched out behind her. If she lay down to sleep, or sat with tail curled snugly around her forepaws, she was never molested; but the moment her tail was out of her sight and mind Necho saw the chance for which he had apparently been waiting. Gliding noiselessly down behind the unconscious cat he would tiptoe up and hammer the projecting tail with his beak. It was a startling blow, and at the loud squall or spitting jump that followed he would fly off, “chuckling” immoderately.
When Necho saw or heard a gang of boys assembled he would neglect even his dinner to join them; and presently, without ever having been taught, he announced himself master of a new art by yelling, “Ya-hoo! Come on!” which was the rallying-cry of the clan in that neighborhood. He said this in ludicrous fashion, but unmistakably to those who knew him. Sometimes he would croak the words softly to himself, as if memorizing them or pleased at the sound; but for the most [[15]]part he waited till boys were gathering for a swim or a ball game, when he would launch himself into flight and go skimming down the road, whooping out his new cry exultantly. What meaning he attached to the words, whether of boys or fun or mere excitement, I have no means of knowing.
After learning this much of our speech Necho took to the wild, following a call of the blood, I think; for it was springtime when he disappeared, and the crows’ mating clamor sounded from every woodland. These birds are said to kill every member of their tribe who returns to them after living with men, and the saying may have some truth in it. I have noticed that many tame crows are like tame baboons in that they seem mortally afraid of their wild kinsmen; but Necho was apparently an exception. If he had any trouble when first he returned to his flock, the matter was settled without our knowledge, and during the following autumn there was evidence that he was again in good standing. Long afterward, as I roamed the woods, I might hear his lusty “Ya-hoo! Come on!” from where he led a yelling rabble of crows to chivvy a sleeping owl or jeer at a running fox; and occasionally his guttural cry sounded over the tree-tops when I could not see him or know what mischief was afoot. He never [[16]]returned to the house, and never again joined our play or allowed a boy to come near him.
Not all crows have this “gift of speech”; and the fact that one tame crow learns to use a few English words, while five or six others hold fast to their own lingo, has led to the curious belief that, if you want to make a crow talk, you must split his tongue. How such a belief originated is a mystery; but it was so fixed and so widespread when I was a boy that no sooner was a young crow taken from a nest than jack-knives were sharpened, and the leathery end of the crow’s tongue was solemnly split after grave debate whether a seventh or a third part was the proper medicine. If the crow talked after that, it was proof positive that the belief was true; and if he remained dumb, it was a sign that there was something wrong in the splitting; which is characteristic of a large part of our natural-history reasoning. The debates I have heard or read on the “unanswerable” question of how a chipmunk digs a hole without leaving any earth about the entrance (a question with the simplest kind of an answer) are mostly suggestive of the split-tongue superstition of crow language.
Of the tame crows I have chanced to observe, only a small proportion showed any tendency to repeat words; and these gifted ones are, I judge, [[17]]the same crows that in a wild state may occasionally be heard whistling like a jay, or “barking” or “hooting” or making some other call which ordinary crows do not or cannot make, and which shows an individual talent of mimicry. This last, which I have repeatedly observed among wild crows, is a very different matter from speech; but from the fact that these mimics learn to use a few English words more or less intelligently one might not be far wrong in concluding that every crow has in his brain a small undeveloped nest of cells corresponding to our “bump” of language.
A closer observation of the wild birds may confirm this possibility. Thus, when you hear a solitary crow in a tree-top crying, “Haw! Haw!” monotonously, dipping his head or flirting his tail every time he repeats it, you may be sure that somewhere within range of his eye or voice a flock of his own kind are on the ground, feeding. That this particular haw is a communication to his fellows, telling them that the sentinel is on watch and all is well, seems to me very probable. There are naturalists, I know, who ingeniously resolve the whole phenomenon into blind chance or accident; but that does not square very well with the intelligence of crow nature as I have observed it; nor does it explain the fact that once, when I avoided the sentinel and crept near enough to [[18]]shoot two members of the flock he was supposedly guarding, the rest were no sooner out of danger than they whirled upon the recreant and beat him savagely to the ground.
If you are interested enough to approach any crow-sentinel in a casual or indifferent kind of way (he will take alarm if you approach quickly or directly), you must note that his haw changes perceptibly while you are yet far off. It is no longer formal or monotonous; nor is it uttered with the same bodily attitude, as your eyes plainly see. You would pronounce and spell the cry exactly as before (it should be written aw or haw, not caw, for there is no consonant sound in it); but if your ears are keen, they will detect an entirely different accent or inflection, as they detect different accents and meanings when a sailor’s casual or vibrant “Sail ho!” sings down from the crow-nest of a ship. Now run a few steps toward the sentinel, or pretend to hide and creep, and instantly the haw changes again. This time the accent is sharper even to your dull ears; and hardly is the cry uttered when all the crows of the unseen flock whirl into sight, heading swiftly away to the woods and safety.
Apparently, therefore, this simple haw of the crow is like a root word of certain ancient languages, the Chinese, for example, which has several [[19]]different intonations to express different ideas, but which all sound alike to foreign ears, and which are spelled alike when they appear in foreign print. To judge by the crows’ action, it is certain that their elementary haw has at least three distinct accents to express as many different meanings: one of “all’s well,” another of “watch out,” and a third of “be off!” Moreover, the birds seem to understand these different meanings as clearly as we understand plain English; they feed quietly while haw means one thing, or spring aloft when it means another; and though you watch them a lifetime you will see nothing to indicate that there is any doubt or confusion in their minds as to the sentinel’s message.