OF WILD ANIMALS 27 



But does the wild jungle-fowl, the ancestor of our domestic 

 chicken, indulge in all those noisy expressions of thought and 

 feeling? By no means. I have lived for months in jungles 

 where my hut was surrounded by jungle-fowl, and shot many 

 of them for my table; but the only vocal sound I ever heard 

 from their small throats was the absurdly shrill bantam-like 

 crow of the cock. And even that led to several fatalities in 

 the ranks of Gallus stanleyi. 



Domestic cattle, swine and fowls have each a language of 

 their own, and as far as they go they are almost as clear-cut 

 and understandable as the talk of human beings. Just how 

 much more is behind the veil that limits our understanding we 

 cannot say; but no doubt there is a great deal. 



But it is with the language of wild animals that we are most 

 concerned. As already pointed out, wild creatures, other than 

 song-birds, do not care to say much, because of the danger of 

 attracting enemies that will exterminate them. Herein lies 

 the extreme difficulty of ascertaining how wild beasts com- 

 municate. In the Animallai Hills of southern India I hunted 

 constantly for mauy weeks through forests actually teeming 

 with big game. There were herds upon herds of elephants, 

 gaur, axis deer, sambar deer, monkeys by the hundred, and a 

 good sprinkling of bears, wild hogs and tigers. 



We saw hundreds upon hundreds of animals; but with the 

 exception of the big black monkeys that used to swear at us, 

 I can almost count upon my fingers the whole number of times 

 that we heard animals raise their voices to communicate with 

 each other. 



Ape Voices. Naturally it is of interest to know something 

 of the voices of the animals that physically and mentally 

 stand nearest to man. 



The wild gorilla has a voice almost equal to that of the 

 chimpanzee, but in captivity he rarely utters any vocal sound 

 other than a shriek, or scream. 



The baby orang-utan either whines or shrieks like a human 

 child. The half-grown or adult orang when profoundly ex-^ 



