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universal as it is, is the result of authority rather than of 

 conviction ; and, that if John Locke's name had not been too 

 powerful in the department of mind, it would not have been 

 so extensively held. Mr. Locke disposes of the subject in a 

 very few words ; ' it does not appear, ' he says, ' that brutes 

 abstract, for they give no signs of language/ This statement 

 is not only given with confidence, but it is uttered somewhat 

 oracularly : yet I must be pardoned for my dissent, as I deny 

 most distinctly both the assumption and the inference drawn 

 from it. The fact is, as it is now admitted by all who are 

 intima*^ with the subject, that several tribes of the inferior 

 animals do possess a language; not the mere natural cries indi- 

 cative of pleasure or pain, but a bond fide, articulate commu- 

 nication, in which sentiments can be conveyed from one to 

 another of the same species, and which, in many instances, can 

 be interpreted by human beings. As might be expected, it is 

 chiefly among gregarious animals that these indications assume 

 much prominence; the habitual solitude of many of our 

 domestic ones, renders such a thing utterly impracticable. 

 Hence it is commonly remarked, that when once a fish that has 

 been caught is dropped into the water again, the sport is over 

 for that day. Now if this be the case with so stupid an 

 animal as a fish, and I am prepared to bebeve that it is, what 

 might we expect it to be in the case of bees, ants, rabbits, foxes, 

 and beavers ? Again, who does not know the vast variety of 

 tones of the sparrow, the rook, or, as the Americans say, of 

 the passenger pigeon ? Let any one, on a frosty winter's day, 

 point a walking stick, the handle of a broom, or anything 

 else resembling a gun, at a flock of sparrows, when he is 

 quite sure that he is unobserved of all save one. Never was 

 garrison more suddenly roused at the firing of the sentinel's 

 alarm, than the whole brood will be at the sudden and wild 

 chirrup of their active sentinel. "Now, in the exercise of fair 

 and honourable logic, can there be any other inference drawn 

 from such facts than these, that the creatures possess a means 



