266 ON NATURAL OR INARTICULATE, AND 



But the vocabulary of the common cock and hen is, perhaps, the most ex 

 tensive of any tribe of birds with which we are acquainted; or rather, per- 

 haps, we are better acquainted with the extent of its range than with that of 

 any others. The cock has his watch-word for announcing the morning, his 

 love-speech, and his terms of defiance. The voice of the hen, when she in- 

 fprms her paramour that she is disburdened of an egg, and which he instantly 

 communicates from homestead to homestead, till the whole village is in an 

 uproar, is far different from that which acquaints him that the brood is just 

 hatched ; and both again are equally different from the loud and rapid cries 

 with which she undauntedly assails the felon fox that would rob her of her 

 young. Even the little chick, when not more than four or five days old, ex- 

 hibits a harsher and less melodious clacking when offered for food what it 

 dislikes, than when it perceives what it relishes.* 



Before I quit this part of our suhject it becomes me also to remark, that 

 even in various other tribes of animals than the three classes to which our 

 observations have hitherto applied, we occasionally meet with proofs of an 

 inferior kind of natural language, though it cannot with propriety be called 

 a language of the voice. And I may here observe, that among 'the few of 

 these three classes which we have already noticed as being destitute of a 

 vocal larynx, the bounty of nature has often provided a substitute. Thus 

 the wapiti (cervus Wapiti of Barton), though without the sonorous endow- 

 ment of the horse or ox, seems to have a compensation in an organ that con- 

 sists of an oblique slit or opening tinder the inner angle of each eye, nearly 

 an inch long externally, which appears also to be an auxiliary to the nostril; 

 for with this he makes a noise that he can vary at pleasure, and which is not 

 unlike the lond and piercing whistle that boys give by putting their fingers in 

 their mouth. f 



Among insects, however, we find a still more varied talent of uttering 

 sounds, though possessed neither of lungs nor larynx, nor the nasal slit of the 

 wapiti. The bee, the fly, the gnat, and the beetle afford familiar instances 

 of this extraordinary faculty. The sphinx Airopos, a species of hawk-moth, 

 squeaks, when hurt, nearly as loud as a mouse; it has even the power, in 

 certain circumstances, of uttering a plaintive note, which cannot fail to ex- 

 cite deep commiseration. If a bee or wasp be attacked near its own hive, 

 the animal expresses its pain or indignation in a tone so different from its 

 usual hum, that the complaint is immediately understood by the hive within; 

 when the inhabitants hurry out to revenge the insult in such numbers, that 

 the offender is fortunate if he escape without a severe castigation. 



The cunning- spider often avails himself of the natural tone of distress 

 uttered by the fly to make sure of him for his prey. He frequently spreads 

 out his webs or toils to such an extent that he cannot see from one end of 



Island at a certain season of tlie year to produce and rear its young. This appears to be the grand inten- 

 tion which nature IIHS in view; but in consequence-of the observation just made, its presence here may 

 answer many secondary purposes ; among these I shall notice the following: The beneficent Author of 

 nature seems to spare no piins in cheering the heart of man with everything that is deliuhtful in tho 

 summer season. We may be indulged with the company of these visiters, perhaps, to heighten, by the 

 novelty of their appearance, and pleasing variety of their notes, the native scenes. How sweetly, at the 

 retiirn'of spring, do the notes of the cuckoo first burst upon the ear; and what apathy must that soul pos- 

 sess, that does not feel a soft emotion at the song of the nightingale (surely it must be " fit for treasons, 

 stratagems, and spoils"), and how wisely is it contrived that a general stillness should prevail while this 

 heavenly bird is pouring forth its plaintive and melodious strains, stiains that so sweetly accord with 

 the evening hour! Some of our foreign visiters, it may be said, are inharmonious minstrels, and rather 

 disturb than aid the general concert. In the mids* of a soft warm summer's day, when the martin is 

 gi-otly floating on the air, not only pleasing us with the peculiar delicacy of its note, but with the elegance 

 of its mea?idering; when the blackcap is vying wkh the goldfinch, and the linnet with the woodlark, a 

 dozen swifts rus!i from some neighbouring battlement, and set up a most discordant screaming. Yet all 

 is perfect. The interruption is of short duration, and without it the loner-continued warbMng of the softer 

 singing birds would pall and tire the listening ear with excess of melody, as the exhilarating beams of 

 the sun, were they not at intervals intercepred by clouds, would rob the heart of the anyety they for a 

 while inspire, and sink it into languor. There is a perfect consistency in the order in which nature seem* 

 to have directed the singing birds to fill up jthe day with their pleasing hnrmony. To an observer of those 

 divine laws which harmonize the general order of things, there ap|iears a design in the arrangement of 

 this sylvan minstrelsy. It is not in the haunted roeadoWi nor frequented field, we are to expect the gratifi 

 cation of indulging ourselves in this plea-inir speculation to its full extent; we must seek for it in th 

 Dark, the forest, or some sequestered dll, half enclosed by the coppice or the wood." 

 * See White's Hist, of Selborne, vol. ii. p. 17. See Phil. Mag. No. 223, Nov. 1816, p. 393. 



