256 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



same reason for concluding that the sound of their 

 voices, by elevation, depression, or modulation, con- 

 veys intelligence equivalent to an uttered sentence. 

 The voices of birds seem applicable, in most instances, 

 to the immediate necessities of their condition ; such 

 as the sexual call, the invitation to unite when dis- 

 persed, the moan of danger, the shriek of alarm, the 

 notice of food*." 



It was, no doubt, from such views as these that 

 the notion originated of birds being possessed of 

 a language, and of a knowledge of it having been 

 obtained by certain individuals. The faculty of in- 

 terpreting the language of birds is attributed, in 

 classic fable, to various of the ancient diviners. 

 Apollodorus, in his Bibliotheca, relates of Melam- 

 pus, that he acquired this gift by having had his 

 ears licked by serpents; and that one of the ways by 

 which he chiefly gained a knowledge of futurity, 

 was by listening to what he heard uttered by the 

 birds as they flew over his head. Porphyry, in his 

 book on abstinence from animal food, refers to Em- 

 pedocles, Plato, and Aristotle, in support of the 

 opinion that all the inferior animals are possessed 

 both of reason and language ; and, in addition to 

 Melampus, he mentions Tiresias, Thales, and Apol- 

 lonius of Tyanaea, as having been able to interpret 

 what they said. This is affirmed to have been one 

 of the gifts bestowed upon Tiresias in compensation 

 for his blindness by Minerva. Some of the Jewish 

 rabbies have attributed a similar power to King 

 Solomon. Even as late as the seventeenth century 

 we find the Irish monk, Bonaventure Baron, in his 

 work in -defence of Scotus, speaking of a brother 

 Franciscan, who, he says, understood the language 

 of beasts, and was enabled by that means to foretell 



* Journ. of a Naturalist, p. 269, 3d edit. 



