"THE TALK OF ANIMALS." 



[This is the title of an article from the London Telegraph, which is so well written, and is 

 so interesting that we cannot deny ourselves the privilege of making liberal extracts from it. . ] — Ed. 



ATURALISTS have recently 

 been discussing the interest- 

 ing question whether or not 

 Bees can talk with 

 each other. Those 

 best informed on the subject are, we 

 gather, inclined to regard it as per- 

 fectly possible. Such a view would, 

 perhaps, astonish many minds not 

 familiar with these and others of the 

 lower creatures by daily observation. 

 Yet the more people live in close 

 notice of animals and insects the less 

 inclined they will feel to draw that 

 very difficult line which divides 

 instinct from reason, or to set any hard 

 and fast limit to the wonders of 

 Nature. In fact, the very word 

 "lower" becomes sometimes an insult, 

 a positive affront to the wonderful life 

 about us, which even proud Man him- 

 self has scarcely a right to offer. 

 There could, for instance, be nothing 

 well conceived humbler than the 

 Earthworm. Until the illustrious 

 Darwin took up the subject of that 

 despised being no one comprehended 

 the vastness of man's debt to this poor, 

 ugly, trampled creature. The number- 

 less millions of that obscure tribe, none 

 the less, have created all the loam and 

 all the arable land of the whole globe, 

 passing through their bodies the fallen 

 leaves and decaying vegetable matter; 

 and by their single sphere of labor in 

 this respect rendering cultivation and 

 harvests possible. When we tread on 

 that Worm we destroy an agricultural 

 laborer of the most respectable class. 

 To those eternal and widespread toils 

 of the creeping friend of men we owe 

 the woods, the meadows,- and the 

 flowers. This is, of course, only an 

 example of the importance, not of the 

 faculties of the lower creatures. 



Nevertheless even Worms communi- 

 cate sufficiently to have and to observe 



their seasons of love; and Bees are so 

 much higher in the scale of life, and 

 so richly gifted in all details of their 

 work, and so sociable in their habits, 

 that it would not be at all a safe thing 

 to say they possess no means of inter- 

 course. Certainly no skillful and 

 watchful bee-master would ever ven- 

 ture upon such an assertion. He 

 knows very well how the sounds in 

 the hive and those produced by indi- 

 vidual Bees vary from time to time, 

 and in a manner which appears to 

 convey, occasionally at all events, 

 mutual information. A Wasp or a 

 strange Bee entering a hive without 

 permission seems mighty quickly to 

 hear something not very much to its 

 advantage, and when two or three 

 Bees have found a good source of 

 honey, how on earth do all the others 

 know which path to take through the 

 trackless air, except by some friendly 

 buzz or wing-hint? Now, the bee- 

 masters tell us that there is surely one 

 particular moment in the history of 

 the hive when something very much 

 like actual language appears to be 

 obviously employed. It is when the 

 young queen is nearly ready to move 

 away. She begins to utter a series of 

 faint, staccato, piping noises, quite 

 different from her ordinary note, and 

 just before she flies off this sound 

 becomes altered to a low, delicate kind 

 of whistle, as if emanating from some 

 tiny fairy flute. How this small cry, 

 or call, or signal, is produced nobody 

 understands. The major portion of 

 sounds in a hive is, of course, caused 

 by the vibration more or less rapidly 

 of the wings of the Bees. But whoever 

 has examined the delicate machinery 

 with which the Grass-hopper makes 

 his chirp would not be surprised to 

 find that the queen Bee had also some 

 peculiar contrivance by which to 



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