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INTRODUCTION. 43 



the property of instinct; in prosecuting which, if I 

 should be enabled to prove that innumerable actions 

 performed by dogs, and other animals, are not at all 



dropped the bone, and commonly concluded the operation by a 

 chuckle of pleasure at this reciprocity of friendship. AVas this purely 

 an instinctive application of sounds? If the bird, in error, had ap- 

 plied the call to any other food, it might have led to such a conclu- 

 sion ; but, as the call was never made but when a bone was at hand, 

 it certainly warrants the inference I would draw from it. Exactly a 

 .similar circumstance has been credibly related to me of a cockatoo 

 which used to call a cat. Puss, Puss, to receive a bone when she had 

 finished picking it. What does a dog mean that stands barking at a 

 door where he has been usually admitted, but an intelligible notice 

 that he is waiting, and an earnest request to be let in? 



It is reasonable to suppose, that, when Locke denied to brutes 

 the use, or rather the application, of speech, or of such general 

 sounds as convey universal ideas, he was either unacquainted with 

 the history of the preacher monkey (simia Beelzebub, Lin.), or alto- 

 "•ether disbelieved the accounts we have of it. Marcgraave, an 

 observant naturalist of the highest authority, and one whose testi- 

 mony has been corroborated by others who, like him, have been 

 eye-witnesses to the peculiar habits of these extraordinary animals, 

 lias informed us that droops of these animals assemble in the woods 

 of the Brazils regularly every morning and evening. At these times, 

 one among the number, placing himself on a branch above the rest, 

 seems to command general attention, for all assemble and sit be- 

 neath him in profound silence. The superior, or preacher, then com- 

 mences a species of chattering in a loud shrill kind of howl ; which 

 having continued a certain time, he makes a signal with his hand, 

 when the whole assembly join in chorus. This continues until he 

 again by a signal commands silence ; the orator then resumes his 

 discourse, and finishes his address, and the assembly breaks up. 

 Dampier confirms this account, and further adds, that he has fre- 

 quently witnessed with astonishment, the attention that members of 

 the community have paid to one that has been wounded by a shot : 

 they have gathered round the unhappy suff'erer, have endeavoured to 

 close the wound, and, when the bleeding has been excessive, they 

 have been observed to insert pledgets of vegetables to stop the hae- 

 morrhage. 



The language of animals, it is evident, is sufficient for all the 



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