VOICE AND SPEECH. 517' 



a friend for a fortnight, but was desirous that a particular dog should not ac- 

 company him, as it was always " breeding some uproar." While the animal was 

 near him he mentioned his intention to his mother in the evening. The dog 

 was to be locked up till some time after he had started. But in the morning, 

 when the time came, it was not to be found. " The d 's in that beast," said 

 he, " I will wager that he heard what we were saying yesternight, and has gone 

 off for Bowerhope as soon as the door was opened this morning." A great flood 

 had taken place in the night, so that the Yarrow was impassable, and Hogg had 

 to go by St Mary's Loch, and cross in a boat. But though it appeared impas- 

 sable by any living creature, the dog had swam it early in the morning, and was 

 found by Hogg, " sitting, ' like a drookit hen,' on a knowl at the east end of his 

 friend's house, awaiting his arrival with great impatience." b 



As the exertion of every power is a gratification, brutes take an intense 

 pleasure in making the noises of which they are capable. The singing of some 

 birds, and the chattering and squalling of others, are examples of this. 



The voice of some small brutes is, like the muscular powers of others, far 

 greater than in large animals proportionally, and of some even absolutely. A 

 grasshopper, weighing an eighth of an ounce, may be heard at the distance of the 

 sixteenth of a mile ; and Americans have calculated that a man, weighing as 

 much as 1600 grasshoppers, were his voice in proportion, would be audible at 

 the distance of 1000 miles, and when he sneezed would cause the house to be in 

 danger of falling, as the walls of Jericho tumbled at the sound of the trumpet, 



b Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Feb. 1824. 



M M 4 



