LANGUAGE. 179 
strained. “All other animals,” he says, “ as well 
as man, are possessed of the natural language of 
the passions, expressed in signs or tones; and we 
shall endeavour to evince that those animals which 
have preserved themselves from being enslaved by 
mankind, and are associated in flocks, are also pos- 
sessed of some artificial language and of some tra- 
ditional knowledge. 
‘<The mother-turkey, when she eyes a kite hover- 
ing high in air, has either seen her own parents 
thrown into fear at his presence, or has by observa- 
tion been acquainted with his dangerous designs 
upon her young. She becomes agitated with fear, 
and uses the natural language of that passion; her 
young ones catch the fear by imitation, and in an 
instant conceal themselves in the grass. 
“At the same time that she shows her fears by 
her gesture and deportment, she uses a certain ex- 
clamation, Koe-ut, Koe-ut, and the young ones after- 
ward know that the presence of their adversary ?. 
denounced, and hide themselves as before. 
“The wild tribes of birds have very frequent op 
portunities of knowing their enemies by observing 
the destruction they make among their progeny, of 
which every year but a small part escapes to ma- 
turity ; but to our domestic birds these opportuni- 
ties so rarely occur, that their knowledge of their 
distant enemies must frequently be delivered by tra- 
dition in the manner above explained, through many 
generations. 
“This note of danger, as well as the other notes 
of the mother-turkey, when she calls her flock to 
their food or to sleep under her wings, appears to 
be an artificial language, both as expressed by the 
mother and as understood by the progeny. For a 
hen teaches this language with equal ease to the 
ducklings she has hatched from supposititious eggs, 
and educates as her own offspring; and the wag- 
tails or hedge-sparrows learn it from the young 
