OBSERVATIONS ON THE LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS. 535 



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 work- 

 ing-room at the end of a garden, in which a laughing mew wan- 

 dered. 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 ring- 

 ing, 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 vis- 

 itor was embarrassed at seeing nobody after having been invited 

 to open the door. 



Instances in which 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 rec- 

 ognize it and understand it. In these things we see the rela- 

 tion between the tone of the prating or cluck of the hen and her 

 acts. But when a nightingale sings all night, or a gold-finch 

 whistles or a raven croaks, we can not 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, were held in the 

 north of France while I was living at Lille, between 1855 and 

 18G0. I do not know whether they have been suppressed or not, 

 but the laws for the protection of animals ought to take cogni- 

 zance of them. The gamesters put out the eyes of the male finches, 

 and made them, thus blinded, compete as singers, for which pur- 

 pose 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 fre- 

 quently, 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 



