

DO ANIMALS TALK? 225 



common ' all-fowls' tongue/ but they have not. 5 * We 

 once saw a large mixed flock of gray plover, knots, 

 and stints flying past on the muds, at a distance of some 

 ninety yards. A gunner noticed that there were two 

 or three golden plover amongst them. These are easy 

 to call ; and all fowl are more likely to answer to the 

 call when only two or three of the same species are 

 together. The gunner, therefore, whistled the golden 

 plovers' note, and out from the big flock of some sixty 

 birds the pair of golden plovers instantly flew, wheeled 

 round, and passed within fifty yards, answering the call 

 in their own language. Perhaps the best instance of 

 the dexterity of the gunners in learning bird-language 

 was recently recorded in the Westminster Gazette. It 

 is credited to a fowler who shot the only specimen of 

 the broad-billed sandpiper ever killed in Norfolk. 

 When down on the muds listening to the notes of the 

 shore birds he distinguished one which he did not 

 know. He imitated it, the bird answered, flew up to 

 him, and was shot. It does not follow that talkative, 

 garrulous species really have more to say to one another 

 than others. Like other chatterboxes, they like to hear 

 themselves, and do not listen to other people. Starlings, 

 for instance, which seem almost to talk, and certainly 



* In Mr. Tegetmeier's work on pheasants, it is noted that 

 young golden pheasants bred under hens go gaping about for a 

 day or two, as if stupid, before learning hens* language. 



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