How Animals Talk 



animal or the whole man, not his brain and senses 

 alone, becomes sensitive to the most delicate im- 

 pressions, to inaudible sounds or vibrations, to 

 unseen colors, to unsmelled odors or intangible 

 qualities, to a multitude of subtle messages from 

 the external world, which are ordinarily unnoticed 

 because the senses are ordinarily separate, each 

 occupied with its particular message. So when 

 a sleeping animal is suddenly aware that he must 

 be alert, he does not learn of approaching danger 

 through his ears or nose, but through chumfo, 

 through the perfect co-ordination of all his senses 

 working together as one. In the same way a 

 wandering black man always knows where his hut 

 or camp is; he holds his course on the darkest 

 night, finds his way through a vast jungle, goes 

 back to any spot in it where he left something, and 

 often astonishes African travelers by getting wind 

 of their doings while they are yet far distant. 



Such is the native philosophy; and the striking 

 feature of it is, that it is not superstitious but 

 keenly observant, not ignorant but rational and 

 scientific, since it seems to anticipate our latest 

 biological discoveries, or rather, as we shall see, 

 a philosophy which rests upon biological science 

 as a foundation. 



Perhaps the first suggestion that the native may 

 have reason in his theory comes from the extraor- 



[60] 



