122 ' FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS. 



sounds and analyzed their voices, the roar of the 

 Lion is but a gigantic miau, bearing about the 

 same proportion to that of a Cat as its stately 

 and majestic form does to the smaller, softer, 

 more peaceful aspect of the Cat. Yet, notwith- 

 standing the difference in their size, who can look 

 at the Lion, whether in his more sleepy mood, as 

 he lies curled up in the corner of his cage, or in 

 his fiercer moments of hunger or of rage, with- 

 out being reminded of a Cat ? And this is not 

 merely the resemblance of one carnivorous ani- 

 mal to another ; for no one was ever reminded 

 of a Dog or Wolf by a Lion. 



Again, all the Horses and Donkeys neigh ; for 

 the bray of the Donkey is only a harsher neigh, 

 pitched on a different key, it is true, but a sound 

 of the same character, as the Donkey himself 

 is but a clumsy and dwarfish Horse. All the 

 Cows low, from the Buffalo roaming the prairie, 

 the Musk-Ox of the Arctic ice-fields, or the Jack 

 of Asia, to the Cattle feeding in our pastures. 



Among the Birds, this similarity of voice in 

 Families is still more marked. We need only re- 

 call the harsh and noisy Parrots, so similar in 

 their peculiar utterance. Or take as an example 

 the web-footed Family, do not all the Geese and 

 the innumerable host of Ducks quack ? Does not 

 every member of the Crow Family caw, whether 

 it be the Jackdaw, the Jay, or the Magpie, the Rook 



