128 ANIMAL ARTISANS 



shock was felt does not make it impossible that the 

 sheep felt or heard some of the common premonitions 

 of earthquake. The roaring sound which sometimes 

 precedes a shock has been heard by human ears at a 

 distance of nearly one hundred and sixty miles from 

 the disturbed area. It is known also that these sounds 

 were once heard for a month in Mexico, with no sub- 

 sequent shock at all. 



It is well known that many sounds, such as the 

 squeaking of bats and the rustle of the grasshopper, 

 are not audible to the ears of some persons, though 

 easily heard by others. Nothing is more probable 

 than that the whisperings of earth and air, to which 

 we are deaf, are heard by the keener animal ears. 

 The supposition that they have a "sixth sense," a 

 hypothesis which arouses a degree of irritation diffi- 

 cult to account for in some minds, need not be 

 raised in this case any more than in the instances 

 in which animals are obviously conscious of coming 

 storms. If many human beings are uneasy at such 

 times, and declare that they " feel " a thunderstorm 

 coming, there need be no doubt whatever that many 

 animals are far longer, earlier, and more acutely alive 

 to the heat and electric tension before a coming 

 cyclone. 



