How Animals Talk 



I could not make out. He turned his treasures 

 over and over, all the while croaking to himself 

 in a pleased kind of way; then he put them all 

 back, covered them again with needles, and slipped 

 away without a sound. Having kept tame crows, 

 I knew that they are forever stealing and hiding 

 whatever bright objects they find about the house; 

 and here in the pine woods was a thing to indicate 

 that wild crows, perhaps all of them, have the 

 same covetous habit. 



Another day, a heavenly day when the budding 

 woods were vocal and life stirred joyously in 

 every thicket, I took a jews'-harp from my pocket 

 and began to twang it idly. No, there was noth- 

 ing premeditated in the act. I had been roving 

 widely, following the winds or the bird-calls till 

 a sunny opening invited me to rest, and had then 

 fingered the music-maker with no more purpose 

 than the poet's boy, who "whistled as he went 

 for want of thought." The rhythmic, nasal 

 twanging was a sound never heard in that place 

 before or since, I think, and the first to come hur- 

 riedly to investigate was a bright-colored warbler, 

 whose name I did not know; nor did I care to 

 know it, feeling sure that by some note or sign he 

 would presently suggest a name for himself, which 

 would please me better than the barbarous jargon 

 I might find in a bird-book. The alert little fellow 



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