sometimes stopped in the middle and finished
with a whistle, conveying a curious effect of
levity and insult, which must very much
have puzzled the listening warriors of the
neighbourhood.

Pliny tells us that the younger nightingales
study the older, and catch and imitate the
song; the scholar listening with the utmost
earnestness, and replying to it at intervals,
"comprehending the correction of error and
every little step in the lesson." (Intelligitur
emendatae correctio, et in docente quaedam
reprehensio.) All this is in the natural and
usual way of imitation, by means of which
young birds are taught the song of their
species; and yet experiments are recorded
by Mr. Couch of a young thrush, and of a
goldfinch, being taken so early from the nest
that they could have had no opportunity of
receiving a lesson, or perhaps hearing a song,
from the parent, and that, nevertheless, the
caged birds, at four or five years old, sung the
song of their species. This is more than can
be said of the lingual powers of the human
species; and though Sir Thomas Brown avers
that if any infant were left on an uninhabited
island, and grew up, it would spontaneously
speak the primitive language of man in the
Garden of Eden—namely, Hebrew—we yet
venture to express our conviction that this
very interesting young person would speak no
human language whatever. A dumb language,
however, if we may so term it, of signs,
gesticulations, and expressive sounds, would
undoubtedly be possessed, and be correspondingly
intelligible to all of his own species, and
to many of a different species.

Mr. Couch relates an amusing story of two
swallows, one of whom was returning to his
nest, but was incessantly pursued by the other
(evidently a gay young bachelor) who wanted
to go there also. In all their circles and
turns, the married proprietor of the nest
invariably kept on the side towards it, both of
them the whole time being at "high words."
Meanwhile, the hen swallow, who was sitting
in the dark at the bottom of her nest, under a
roof, heard all the dispute, and comprehended
every word of it. Eventually, being quite
unable to endure it any longer, she darted
out, and pouncing upon the impertinent
stranger, who had dared to persist in saying
he would come to her nest, aided her husband
so efficiently that the gay young bachelor was
driven away with a sorely pecked crown.

It is obvious that a kind of language,
answering all their purposes of life, is
possessed by most of those creatures whom we
erroneously designate as dumb. But not only
have they different sounds which are
intelligible to those of the same species; they have
also a still greater variety of actions, or signs,
by which to communicate with each other,
many of which are visible to us, and very
probably they have many more of which we
can form no conception. Some of them have
the sense of hearing infinitely finer than ours.
A field is thus open to impressions which are
beyond us. The same may be said of the
sense of smell. Each of these senses admits
of subtle and distant communications, of which
we have good evidence; but how much more
remains unknown to us! So of the sight.
These interesting questions have been
discussed in a new but no less earnest fashion, by
Mr. R. H. Horne, in his charming book entitled
"The Poor Artist; or Seven Eyesights and
One Object;" a work which endeavours in a
playful manner to elucidate the wonders
and diversities of vision in different organs
of sight. We borrow a few observations
from it:—

"The greyhound runs by eyesight only,
and this we observe as a fact. The carrier-
pigeon flies his two hundred and fifty miles
homewards, by eyesight, viz., from point to
point, by objects which he has marked; but
this is only our conjecture. The fierce dragon-
fly, with twelve thousand lenses in his eyes,
darts from angle to angle with the rapidity
of a flashing sword, and as rapidly darts back
—not turning in the air, but with a clash
reversing the action of his four wings—the
only known creature that possesses this
faculty. His sight, then, both forwards and
backwards, must be proportionately rapid
with his wings, and instantaneously calculating
the distance of objects, or he would dash
himself to pieces." The subtle operations of
other senses in different creatures, exceeding
the senses of man in these respects, are thus
noticed in the same work. " What sort of
hearing has the shark—if any? The organs
of smell, however, in the shark, who discovers,
through the great volume of waters, and through
the dense timbers, that somebody is dead, yea,
or dying, in the cabin, must be wonderful.
But we know nothing about this beyond the
fact. The same creature, whether shark or
cat, who has a wonderful sense of smell in
some things, seems to have no nose at all for
many others. No one ever saw a monkey
smell a flower. If he did smell it, this would
only be to inquire if it were eatable or
poisonous. Then, as to the sense of touch;
what a fine work goes on in the language of
the antennae! and yet it is impossible that the
majority of these insects should possess sensations
like ours. A wasp flies in at the window,
alights on the breakfast table, runs swiftly up
the side of the sugar-basin, and displays his
grim face in a brazen mask with iron spectacles,
just above the rim. The next moment
he darts upon the sugar. But an alarmed
hand advances a pair of scissors, and suddenly
snips off his head. The body staggers, and
perhaps flies away, while the jaws of the
brazen mask with iron spectacles continue for
some seconds to work away at the sugar, as
though no such event had occurred."

Mr. Horne also speculates on the variations
of the organs of taste in different creatures; he
is curious to know whether the birds of prey
who bolt everything whole, really taste their