Sounds we cannot Hear. 413 



With every Indian tribe I Lave ever met with, either east 

 or west of the Rocky Mountains, the owls, whether large or 

 small, are always held sacred, their feathers being worn as charms 

 by the medicine men, or conjurors, of the tribes. It is perhaps 

 fortunate for the owls they are so dreaded. There are many 

 Indian traditions I could relate, where terrible calamities have 

 invariably followed the warnings of the pigmy owl, but space 

 forbids. 



Why such an exquisite type of Creative Wisdom — beautiful 

 in plumage, retiring in habit, harmless, and gentle — should 

 inspire terror and aversion, are mysteries I must leave to wiser 

 heads than mine to solve. 



SOUNDS WE CANNOT HEAR. 



BY SAMUEL DEEW, M.D. 



Most persons, if asked whether insects possessed voice, would 

 either at once say that they did not, or would consider the 

 humming, or buzzing, of the various winged insects as vocal, 

 which would be as erroneous as to confound the whir made by 

 a covey of partridges in rising, with their call to one another 

 after being scattered. 



I, however, think that most probably the greater number 

 of insects have voices, and that we have certainly no proof to 

 the contrary. I do not imagine that insects possess any mode 

 of audible communication of a very complex character, still 

 less that they have anything like articulate speech, which their 

 anatomy almost forbids ; yet that animals, which unmistake- 

 ably do communicate with one another, and some, if not all, of 

 which have auditory organs, should do so by determinate and 

 intelligible sounds is certainly likely. Of the fact that they do 

 communicate intelligence to one another no one who has ever 

 carefully watched an ant-hill, or bee-hive, can entertain a 

 doubt; indeed it is barely possible for the complicated 

 arrangements of such communities to be carried on otherwise. 



True we can hear no voices, for the ceaseless hum of the 

 bees can no more be considered vocal than the tramp of a 

 regiment of soldiers could be. Is, however, our hearing no 

 such sound any proof that no such sound is given out ? I 

 think not. 



Some years ago, when a student at the University of 

 Edinburgh, and attending the lectures of Professor Donaldson, 



