294 



ON NATURAT. OR INARTICULATE, AND 



the whole village is in an uproar, is far different from that which acquaints 

 him that the brood is just hatched ; and both again are equally different 

 from the loud and rapid cries with which she undauntedly assails the felon 

 fox that would rob her of her young. Even the little chick, when not 

 more than four or five days old, exhibits a harsher and less melodious 

 clacking when offered for food what it dislikes, tiian when it perceives 

 what it relishes.* 



Before I quit this part of our subject it becomes me also to remark that^ 

 even in various other tribes of animals than the three classes to which our 

 observations have hitherto applied, we occasionally meet with proofs of an 

 inferior kind of natural language, though it cannot with propriety be called 

 a language of the voice. And 1 may here observe, that among the few 

 of these three classes, which we have already noticed as being destitute 

 of a vocal larynx, the bounty of nature has often provided a substitute. 

 Thus the wapiti (cervus Wapiti of Barton), though without the sonorous 

 endowment of the horse or ox, seems to have a compensation iri an organ 

 that consists of an oblique slit or opening under the inner angle of each 

 eye, nearly an inch long externally, which appears also to be an auxiliary 

 to the nostril ; for with this he makes a noise that he can vary at pleasure, 

 and which is not unlike ttie loud and piercing whistle, that boys give by 

 putting their fingers in their mouth. t 



Among insects, hov/ever, we find a still more varied talent of uttering 

 sounds, though possest neither of lungs nor larynx, nor the nasal slit of 

 the wapiti. The bee, the fly, the knat, and the beetle, afford famiHar in- 

 stances of this extraordinary faculty. The Sphinx Atropos^ a species of 

 hawk-moth, squeaks, when hurt, nearly as loud as a mouse ; it has even the 

 power, in certain circumstances, of uttering a plaintive note, which cannot 

 fail to excite deep commiseration. If a bee or wasp be attacked near 

 its own hive, the animal expresses its pain or indignation in a tone so dif- 

 ferent from its usual hum, that the complaint is immediately understood by 

 the hive within ; when the inhabitants hurry out to revenge the insult in 

 such numbers, that the offender is fortunate if he escape without a severe 

 eastigation. 



The cunning spider often avails himself of the natural tone of distress 

 uttered by the fly to make sure of him for his prey. He frequently spreads 

 out his webs or toils to such an extent that he cannot see from one end 

 of them to the other ; and often conceals himself in some adjoining crevice 

 where he cannot see the poor animal as it becomes ensnared : but he sits 

 wistfully listening for the buzzing noise that assures him the fly is entangled, 

 and is fluttering to make its escape. He hears the well-known signal, sal- 

 lies forth from his concealment, and riots on the spoil that has fallen into 

 his power with all the eagerness and ferocity that distinguish the most ra- 

 pacious quadrupeds. 



Whether fishes possess any similar means of communicating their feel- 

 ings we know not. Reasoning from the facts that a few of them occa- 

 sionally utter tones of distress when first taken ; and that they possess an 

 organ of hearing, and live in a medium well adapted to the propagation of 

 sDund, it is generally conjectured that they have a language of some kind 

 or other : but our knowledge of their usual habits, from their residing in a 

 different element from our own, is so imperfect, that we have no positive 

 data to build upon. 



♦ See White's Hist, of Selborne, vol. ii. p. 17. 

 t See Phil. Mag. No. 223, Nof. 1816, p. 392= 



