

LANGUAGE. 251 



all onr domestic animals are readily taught to come 

 to us for food when we use one to:<e of voice, and 

 to fly from our anger when we use another. 



44 Rabbits, as they cannot easily articulate sounds, 

 and are formed into societies that live under ground, 

 have a very different method of giving; alarm. When 

 danger is threatened, they thump on the ground with 

 0116 of their hinder feet, and produce a sound that 

 can be heard a great way by animals near the surface 

 of the earth, which would seem to be an artificial 

 sign both from its singularity and its aptness to the 

 situation of the animal. 



"The rabbits on the island of Lor near Senegal 

 have white flesh and are well-tasted, but do not 

 burrow in the earth, so that we may suspect their 

 digging themselves houses in this cold climate is an 

 acquired art, as well as their note of alarm *. 



44 The barking of dogs is another curious note of 

 alarm, and would seem to be an acquired language, 

 ralher than a natural sign ; for 4 in the island of Juari 

 Fernandez, the dogs did not attempt to bark, till 

 some European dogs were put among them ; and 

 then they gradually begun to imitate them, but in 

 a strange manner at first, as if they were learning a 

 thing that was not natural to themV 



44 Linnaeus also observes that the dogs of America 

 do not bark at strangers J ; and the European dogs 

 which have been carried to Guinea are said, in three 

 or four generations, to cease to bark, and only howl, 

 like the dogs that are natives of that coast ." 



In reference to the thumping of the rabbit men- 

 tioned by Dr. Darwin, we may state that the act 



* Adanson's Voyage to Senegal. 



t Voyage to S. America, by Don G, Juan and Don Ant. de 

 Ulloa, B.ii. c.4. 

 | Syst. Nat. 

 World Displayed, xvii, 26 > and Zoonomia ; xvi, 10, 1, 



