10,8 Language of Animals [FOURTH WEEK 



and if we unlock it from its hard sheathing of technical 

 terms, we shall find it as simple and as easy to understand 

 as it is interesting. When we once hold the key, it will 

 seem as if scales had fallen from our eyes, and when we 

 take our walks abroad through the fields and woods, when 

 we visit a zoological park, or even see the animals in a 

 circus, we shall feel as though a new world were opened 

 to us. 



No post-offices, or even addresses, exist for birds and 

 mammals; when the children of the desert or the jungle are 

 lost, no detective or policeman hastens to find them, no 

 telephone or telegraph aids in the search. Yet, without any 

 of these accessories, the wild creatures have marvellous 

 systems of communication. The five senses (and perhaps 

 a mysterious sixth, at which we can only guess) are the 

 telephones and the police, the automatic sentinels and 

 alarms of our wild kindred. Most inferior are our own 

 abilities in using eyes, nose, and ears, when compared with 

 the same functions in birds and animals. 



Eyes and noses are important keys to the bright colours 

 of birds and comparative sombreness of hairy-coated crea- 

 tures. Take a dog and an oriole as good examples of the 

 two extremes. When a dog has lost his master, he first 

 looks about; then he strains his eyes with the intense look 

 of a near-sighted person, and after a few moments of this 

 he usually yelps with disappointment, drops his nose to 

 the ground, and with unfailing accuracy follows the track 

 of his master. When the freshness of the trail tells him 

 that he is near its end he again resorts to his eyes, and is 

 soon near enough to recognise the face he seeks. A fox 



