How Animals Talk 



on the instant, without bringing your "good ear" 

 to bear upon it; but if you neglect or lose your 

 first impression, you may hunt for an hour and go 

 back to bed without finding the source of the dis- 

 turbance. Or you are traveling along a lonely lane 

 at night, more alive than you commonly are, when 

 a sudden cry breaks out of the darkness. It lasts 

 but a fraction of a second and is gone ; yet in that 

 fleeting instant you have learned three things : you 

 know the direction of the cry; you know, though 

 you never heard it before, whether it is a loud 

 cry from a distance or a faint cry from near at 

 hand; and you are so sure of its exact location 

 that you go to a certain spot, whether near or far, 

 and say, "That cry sounded here." 



So much if you act naturally ; but if you depend 

 on your ears or judgment, as men are apt to do, 

 then you are in for a long chase before you locate 

 the cry of a bird or a beast or a lost child in the 

 night. 



It is easy to make mistakes here, for we are so 

 cumbered by artificial habits that it is difficult to 

 follow any purely natural process; but our trail 

 becomes clearer when we study the matter of 

 hearing among the brutes. Thus, your dog is lying 

 asleep by the fire when a faint noise or footstep 

 sounds outside. Sometimes, indeed, there is no 

 audible sound at all when he springs to his feet; 



[62] 



