VOICE INAETICULATE LANGUAGE. 479 



moral affection has its appropriate cry; the cry of joy is very distinct 

 from that of grief; of surprise from that of fear, &c.; and the patho- 

 logist finds, in the diseases of children more especially, that he can 

 occasionally judge of the seat of a disease by the character of the cry, 

 to which the little sufferer gives utterance ; that there is, in the language 

 of M. Broussais, a cry peculiar to the suffering organ. 



By the cry, our vivid sensations are expressed, whether they be of 

 the external or internal kind; agreeable or painful; and by it we exhibit 

 all our natural passions, and most simple instinctive desires. Generally, 

 the most intense sounds, to which the organ of voice can give utter- 

 ance, are embraced in the natural cry; and, in its character, there is 

 frequently something, that annoys the ear and produces more or less 

 effect on those within hearing. It is, by its agency, that sympathetic 

 relations are established between man and his fellows; and between 

 animals of the same kind. The language, possessed by the greater 

 part of animals, is this natural voice differing according to varying 

 organization, and, therefore, instinctive; hence the various notes of 

 birds; and the ranges, which we find the voice to possess in different 

 species. Yet each species has one, by which it is distinguished and 

 which it possesses, even when brought up in the same cage with one of 

 another species ; or when hatched, and attended to, by a foster mother 

 endowed with very different vocal powers. In the case of a goldfinch 

 and chaffinch, this has been put directly to- the proof; and it is well 

 known, that the cuckoo, which is never hatched or nurtured by its own 

 parent, still retains the note, that has acquired it its name in almost 

 every language of the globe. It is, probably, by this natural cry, and 

 not by any signs addressed to the eye, that the process of pairing is 

 effected, and that the female is induced to select her mate. The voca- 

 bulary of the common cock and hen is quoted as perhaps the most 

 extensive of that of any tribe of birds with which we are acquainted; or 

 rather, as Dr. Good remarks, 1 we are better acquainted with the extent 

 of its range than with that of any other. The cock has his watchword 

 for announcing the morning; his love-speech and terms of defiance. 

 The voice of the hen, when leaving her nest, after laying, is different 

 from that which she assumes when the brood is hatched, and both are 

 very different from her cries, when her young are placed in jeopardy. 

 Even the chick exhibits a variety in its voice, according to the precise 

 emotion it experiences. All these sounds are such as the larynx of the 

 animal alone admits of; and hence we can understand why, so far, they 

 should be mere modifications of the natural voice; but it is more than 

 probable, that the chick learns the adoption of a particular sound by 

 the parent to express a particular emotion, as an affair of education. 

 It can scarcely be conceived, that the clucking of the hen, when she 

 meets with food proper for her offspring, can be understood at first by 

 the chick. But as soon as it traces the connexion between the sound 

 produced and the object of such sound, it comprehends the signification 

 ever afterwards. 



There are sounds, which, from their discordant and harsh characters, 



1 Book of Nature, ii. 277, Lond., 1826. 



