268 Voice of Animals [THIRD WEEK 



the result is a bark. No wild coyotes or wolves bark, but 

 when bands of dogs descended from domesticated animals 

 run wild, their howls are modulated and a certain unmis- 

 takable barking quality imparted. The drawn-out howl 

 of a great gray wolf is an impressive sound and one never 

 to be forgotten. Only the fox seems to possess the ability 

 to bark in its native tongue. The sounds which the cats, 

 great and small, reproduce are most varied. Nothing can 

 be much more intimidating than the roar of a lion, or 

 more demoniacal than the arguments which our house-pets 

 carry on at night on garden fences. 



What use the sounds peculiar to sea-lions subserve in 

 their life on the great ocean, or their haunts along the 

 shore, can only be imagined, but surely such laudable 

 perseverance, day after day, to out-utter each other, must 

 be for some good reason! 



Volumes have been written concerning the voices of 

 the two remaining groups of animals monkeys and birds. 

 In the great family of the four-handed folk, more varieties 

 of sound are produced than would be thought possible. 

 Some of the large baboons are awful in their vocalisations. 

 Terrible agony or remorse is all that their moans suggest 

 to us, no matter what frame of mind on the part of the 

 baboon induces them. Of all vertebrates the tiny mar- 

 mosets reproduce most exactly the chirps of crickets and 

 similar insects, and to watch one of these little human faces, 

 see its mouth open, and instead of, as seems natural, 

 words issuing forth, to hear these shrill squeaks is most 

 surprising. Young orang-utans, in their " talk," as well 

 as in their actions, are counterparts of human infants. 



