216 ANIMAL ARTISANS 



must, unless we suppose the existence of another 

 sense, have had some means of asking the way from 

 other foxes which it met on its journey. 



Birds are in general as talkative as quadrupeds are 

 silent. They are not only vocal, enjoying the sound 

 of their own voices, and often listening with delight 

 to the song of their mates, but they talk in the 

 proper sense of the word. They prefer to use their 

 voices as a means of communicating their wishes or 

 ideas. They are able to modulate their voices better 

 than most quadrupeds, though this rule has many 

 exceptions. But this does not explain their prefer- 

 ence for " talking" in place of signalling or the use 

 of touch. It is a racial instinct, quite as character- 

 istic of the order aves as the possession of feathers 

 or the power of flight. 



Two features in the " talking " of birds will occur 

 to every one. There is no universal bird-language, or 

 even a language common to two species, though certain 

 sounds of warning, when uttered by one species, are 

 understood by another. Secondly, the talking faculty 

 is very capriciously distributed, even among birds which 

 are otherwise physically and mentally very much alike. 

 The crows, which easily learn to imitate human speech, 

 have very few notes or calls of their own. The jay has 

 only one, a harsh screech, modified when it is pleased 

 into a croak ; and a chuckle, varied by a squeak, is 

 the whole natural vocabulary of the magpie. Yet the 

 piping- crow and the nutcracker-crow are songsters of 

 a rather high order, and the former has an infinite 

 variety of " words " and calls. 



