8 EFFECT OF A WHISTLE 



sober-minded naturalist (and they are practically all 

 that) has already said in reading it, " You are going 

 too far," I agree with him. The poet Donne has said 

 that there are times when we, or some of us, think 

 with our bodies, and it is truer of the lower animals 

 than of us, perhaps; but the small outward mani- 

 festations are not enough to show us the mind, and 

 the gentleman in his easy-chair, smoking his post- 

 prandial cigar and enjoying his novel at the same 

 time, may be on a very different plane from the deer 

 chewing its cud and catching little flying sounds in 

 its trumpet ears, or from the dog dozing in the sun- 

 shine and capturing winged scents, even as the garden 

 spider while peacefully reposing captures small gilded 

 flies in her geometric web. 



But what follows is plain fact. This same hind 

 gave me yet another surprise before I had finished 

 with her. 



After sitting there for a space of fifteen or twenty 

 minutes, sufficiently entertained by watching all 

 those minute motions I have described, it came into 

 my head to try a little experiment, and I emitted 

 a low whistle. Instantly the ears, which had been 

 pointed forward all the time, were thrown back, 

 and remained in that position about a minute; then, 

 no further sound being given, they went forward 

 again. Then the whistle was repeated, and the ears 

 came back and remained a longer interval, but 

 finally went forward again; and the whistle and move- 

 ment of the ears was repeated five or six times. Then 

 came the surprise. When I whistled next time one 



