How animals talk

by William J. Long

Not only the crows, but the wild ducks as well, and the deer and the fox and many other creatures, seem to understand crow-talk perfectly, or at least a part of it which concerns their own welfare. Thus, on the seacoast in winter you hear the crows hawing continually as they follow the tide-line in search of food. For hours this talk goes on, loudly or sleepily, and the wild ducks pay absolutely no attention to it; though they must know well that hungry crows will kill a wounded or careless duck and eat him to the bones whenever they have a chance. Because of this dangerous propensity you would naturally expect the water-fowl [[20]]to be suspicious of the black freebooter and to be alert when they see or hear him; but no sooner do you begin to hunt with a gun than you learn a thing to make you respect the crow, and perhaps to make you wonder how much or how very little you know of the ways of the wood folk.

Many of the ducks, the black or dusky mallards especially, like to come ashore every day in a secluded spot under the lee of a bank, there to rest or preen or take a quiet nap in company. It is a tempting sight to see a score or a hundred of the splendid birds in a close group, their heads mostly tucked under their wings; but it is practically impossible to stalk them, for the reason that the crows are forever ranging the shore, and a crow never passes a group of sleeping ducks without lifting his flight to take a look over the bank behind them. What his motive is no man can say; we only note that, in effect, he stands sentinel for the ducks against a common enemy, as he habitually does for his own kind. There is no escaping that keen, searching glance of his; he sees you creeping through the beach-grass or hiding behind a bush. He flings out a single haw! with warning, danger, derision in it; and now the same ducks that have heard him all day without concern spring aloft on the instant and head swiftly out to sea.

He flings out a single “Haw!” and the ducks spring aloft on the instant and head swiftly out to sea.

[[21]]

The crows have several other variations of the same cry, expressive of other matters, which all the tribe seem to understand clearly, but which are meaningless to human ears. When I imitate the distress-call of a young crow, for example, I can bring a flock over my head at almost any time, the only condition being that I keep well concealed. At the first glimpse of a man in hiding they sheer off, and it is seldom that I can bring them back a second time to the same spot; yet I have a companion, one who utters a call very much like mine to ordinary ears, who can bring the flock back to him even after they have seen him and suffered at his hands. More than once I have stood beside him in the woods and fired a gun repeatedly, killing a crow and scattering the flock pell-mell at every shot; but no sooner does he begin to talk crow-talk than back they come again. What he says to them that I do not or cannot say is something that only the crows understand.

It is commonly assumed that they come to such a call because they hear in it a cry for help from one of their own kind. That is undoubtedly true at times; for a help-call, especially from a cub or nestling, is a summons to which most animals and birds instinctively respond. And, strangely enough, the smaller they are the braver they seem to be. [[22]]A mother-partridge has more than once flown in my face or beaten me with her wings, while “fierce” hawks, owls and eagles have merely circled around me at a safe distance when I came near their young. In the majority of cases, however, I think that birds come to a distress-call simply because the excitement of an individual spreads to all creatures within sight or hearing, just as a crowd of men or women will become excited and rush to a common center before they know what the stir is all about.

In confirmation of this theory, it is not necessary to cry like a distressed young crow to bring a flock over your head. The imitated hawing of an old crow will do quite as well, if you throw the proper excitement into it. Again, on any summer day you will hear in your own yard the pip-pip of arriving or departing robins. The same call is uttered by both sexes, at all times and in all places; yet if you listen closely you must note that there is immense variety in the accent or inflection of even this simple sound. The call is clear, ringing, joyous when the robins first arrive in the spring; it is subdued when they gather for the autumn flight; it is sleepy or querulous when they stand full-fed by the nest, and most business-like when they launch themselves into flight, which is the moment when you are most sure to hear it. [[23]]A robin utters this call hundreds of times every day, in one accent or another, and neither the other robins nor their feathered neighbors seem to pay any attention to it; but when a red squirrel comes plundering a nest, and the mother robin sends forth the same pip-pip with a different intonation, then the response is instantaneous. The alarm spreads swiftly over wood and field; clamor uprises, and birds of many species come rushing in from all directions; not because they have heard that Meeko is again killing young robins (at least, it does not seem so to me), but because excitement is afoot, and they are bound to join it or find out about it before they can settle down comfortably to their own affairs.

There is an interesting way by which you may test this contagion of excitement for yourself. Hide at the edge of the woods or in any other bird neighborhood in the early morning, preferably at a season when every nest has eggs or fledglings in it; press two fingers against your lips and draw the breath sharply between them, repeating the squeaky cry as rapidly as possible. The sound has a peculiarly exciting quality even to human ears (twice have I seen men run wildly to answer it), and birds come to it as boys to a fire alarm. In a few moments you may have them streaming in from the four quarters of bird world, all highly [[24]]excited, and perhaps all ready to protect some innocent nest from snake or crow or squirrel. Because the response is most electric at the season when fledglings are most helpless, you are apt to think that this call of yours is mistaken by mother birds for a cry for help. That may be true; but be not too sure about it. The fledglings themselves will come almost as readily to the call when the nesting season is over and gone.

I have tried that same exciting summons in many places, wild or settled, and commonly but not invariably with the same result, as if it were a word from the universal bird language. Once in a secluded valley of northern Italy I saw a hunter with his gun, and promptly forgot my own errand in order to chum with him and find out what he had learned of the wood folk. He was hunting birds to eat. “Those birds there!” he said, pointing to a passing flock which I did not recognize, but which seemed pitifully small game to me. Presently I learned that he could not shoot flying, and was having such bad luck that, he said, the devil surely had a hand in it. He was a smiling, companionable loafer, and for a time I tagged after him, watching him amusedly as he made careful but vain stalks of little birds that seemed to have been made wild by much hunting. In a spirit of thoughtless curiosity, and perhaps also [[25]]to test bird nature in a strange land, I invited the hunter to hide with me in a thicket while I gave the call which had so often brought the feathered folk of my own New England woods. At my cry a wisp of birds whirled in to light at the edge of the covert; the Italian’s gun roared; and then I discovered that the wretch was killing skylarks.