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and other viscera, occasionally, when interesting in structure, form, or function. The different boats, nets, or other apparatus in use on the coast, will be figured, and the modes of employing them described. The work will form two volumes octavo, uniform in size with Bewick's British Birds. We have seen a series of impressions of the cuts executed for this work, and can bear testimony to their accuracy and beauty.

The Third Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science is published. It contains a Report on physiological botany, by Dr. Lindley; and other communications, of interest to naturalists.

No. viii. of the Entomological Magazine sustains the reputation of this most valuable work; which, we trust, will ever henceforth be felt by naturalists to be an indispensable one.

A Grammar of Entomology: being a compendious introduction to the economy, anatomy, classification, and preservation of insects, by E. Newman, F.L.S., is announced. "As it is the author's object to render this work generally useful, it will be published at a very low price; and no Latin or technical terms will be used without explanation." (Ent. Mag.)

An Essay on the Indigenous Fossorial Hymenoptera, comprising a description of all the British species of sand wasps extant in the metropolitan cabinets, by W. E. Shuckard, has been announced for publication.

Part iii. of Royle's Illustrations of the Botany and other Branches of the Natural History of the Himalayan Mountains, and of the Flora of Cashmere, is published. It is as interesting as the preceding ones. In a continuation of the "Introduction," information is given on the relative heights of the Himalayan Mountains, as compared with each other and the known heights of those in other countries. A treatise on the Indian species of Gossypium, or cotton, is given in the text, descriptive of the plants; and, in the plates, there are, besides the figures of plants, one plate of "fossil plants from the Burdwan coal formation," and a plate exhibiting figures of Cérvus Dòdur and C. Rútwa Hodgson; two pretty animals.

A Prodromus of a Flora of the Peninsula of India is in preparation by Dr. Wight and Mr. Arnott. The work is to be written in the English language, and will be completed in two volumes. The first, comprising from Ranunculàceæ to the end of Rubiàceæ, will be ready in a few weeks."

Part iii. of Hooker's Journal of Botany, which has reached us since the publication of our last, is rich in contents of high interest to every technical botanist.

THE MAGAZINE

OF

NATURAL HISTORY.

OCTOBER, 1834.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

ART. I. Thoughts on the Question, Why cannot Animals speak the Language of Man? By J. J.

66

A QUERY to this purport is given in I. 299., and I have not observed a reply to it in any subsequent volume. In order to state the several points of the question fully and explicitly, it may be proper to repeat the words of the querist. Why," he observes, "beasts do not speak the language of man, is not the question I would propose; but why (as is evident) they cannot? Whether it is owing, to use a musical phrase, to their want of ear; whether, to use a philosophical one, it results from their want of understanding; or whether, as I am apt to think, it arises from the want of a proper conformation of the organs most necessary in speaking?"

It appears to me, from the mode in which this interrogatory is expressed, that the writer is of the class of thinkers who deny to all animals the possession of attributes, or faculties, with which many of them are unquestionably endowed. It might be easily proved that the higher orders of the animal kingdom possess, and some of them in an eminent degree, faculties which they are here said to "want." "Want of ear" is an expression vague and obscure enough when applied to animals; but if it mean, as I presume it does, the want of a capability of distinguishing variations, or differences of sound, it is manifestly false in its application to animals. Were all animals unable to distinguish the difference between one sound and another, how could they ever be taught to comprehend the meanings of various articulate sounds? to understand, partially, the language of man? How could they be subjected to the purposes of domestication? and of what use, indeed, would their ears be to them? How could a dog know his

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name, and be taught to go or come at the command of his master? a horse to proceed forwards or turn backwards, to turn to the right or left, at a single word of his driver?

"Want of understanding" must mean want of reason. It has been asserted, and repeated, thousands of times, that reason is the exclusive prerogative of man; that man is the only rational creature. But how has this ever been proved? Assuredly not by facts. I have no inclination to discuss the question, which has already been treated on at great length, and with much candour and ability, in Griffiths's edition of Cuvier's Animal Kingdom, iii. 360. et seq.; and I shall merely instance one quality, which, wheresoever it is found, whether in a man or a goose, appears to me to be undeniably demonstrative of the existence of the reasoning principle, and that is, the capability of receiving instruction, or of forming certain conclusions from previous experience. We recognise this quality, in a greater or less degree, throughout the higher orders of animals; and, view it as we will, we can conclude it to be the effect of nothing else than reason: and it is utterly inconsistent with the acknowledged properties of instinct. It is a combined result of memory and judgment; faculties which no one has ever said are not essentially rational, and which are principally effective in rendering the human intellect what it actually is. In short, we cannot deny to animals the possession of that mysterious something which we call mind; of a mind similar to ours in kind, although infinitely inferior to ours in degree.

But to leave this digression, and attempt a direct reply to the question at the head of this article. For this purpose, I cannot do better than quote the observations of Mr. Lawrence (in his Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man) on the subject:-"Man," says he, "exhibits, by external signs, what passes within him; he communicates his sentiments by words: and this sign is universal. The savage and the civilised man have the same power of utterance: both speak, naturally, and are equally understood. It is not owing, as some have imagined, to any defect in their organs that animals are denied the faculty of speech. The tongue of a monkey is as perfect as that of a man; yet monkeys cannot speak. Several animals may be taught to pronounce words, and even to repeat sentences; which proves clearly that the want of speech is not owing to any defect in their organs. But to make them conceive the ideas which these words express is beyond the power of art: they articulate and repeat like an echo or machine. Language implies a train of thinking; and, for this reason, brute animals are

incapable of speech: for, though their external senses are not inferior to our own, and though we should allow some of them to possess a dawning of comparison, reflection, and judgment, it is certain that they are unable to form that association of ideas in which alone the essence of thought consists." (p. 199, 200.)

Gelly, Montgomeryshire, March 1. 1834.

ART. II. Facts and Arguments in relation to the Two Questions, Are all Birds in the Habit of alluring Intruders from their Nest? and, Why do Birds sing? By C. CONWAY, Esq.

ARE all Birds in the Habit of alluring Intruders from their Nests? The lapwing will fly round and round, tumbling and tossing in the air, and at the same time making the country resound with the echoes of its endless pee-wit, and thus lead the intruder farther and farther from its nest; the grouse, if disturbed from her nest, will shuffle through the heath in a very awkward manner, and will not take wing until she has proceeded a considerable distance. [The partridge will do the same.] I once found a skylark do the same. Having been informed of the nest, in a corn field, I proceeded thither to see the eggs, but, finding the bird on the nest, and having my butterfly net in my hand, I easily captured her. When I took the bird into my hand, she feigned death, and allowed herself to be handled for a considerable time, and that rather roughly, and when I threw her from me, in the expectation that she would take wing, she fell to the ground like a stone, and there she lay for me to push her about with my foot, until I at last thought that I had injured her in the capture, and that she was absolutely dead. Remaining quiet, however, for a very short period, the bird began moving, and, with one wing trailing along the ground, and shuffling along as if one of her legs had been broken, she proceeded for a considerable distance, and then took wing. Is there not here an evident distinction shown between instinct and reason? Instinct taught the bird to lure all intruders from her nest, but she could not reason that, as I had already discovered her nest and captured her upon it, the lure was, in this instance, useless. But, the circumstance that led to these remarks is the following. In pursuing an azure blue butterfly, I was diverted from my object by the melodies of a nightingale almost close at my side. The singing was in one continuous, incessant, and uninterrupted melody; there were none of

those frequent breaks, which are so characteristic of the song of the nightingale, when heard at a little distance; it was one incessant warble. I can hardly call it a warble either; it was an unceasing effort; so much so, that I stood perfectly astonished, and at a loss to conceive how it was possible for so small a creature to exert herself so mightily. I began, however, to think, that the nest of the melodist could not be far off; and, as I had never yet seen the nest of the bird, I determined to watch her closely, in order to discover it. But, I was nearly giving up the search as useless; for, as soon as I entered the copse, no matter at what part I made my entrance, there was the nightingale close at my side, delighting me with her melody, and hopping from spray to spray, and from bush to bush, and thus leading me the round of the wood at her pleasure. When, however, all hope of finding the nest had nearly vanished, I fell in with it by pure accident, and I then discovered that the singing of the bird had always led me in a direction from the nest. The question with which I began, I would therefore again repeat-Are all birds in the habit of luring intruders from their nests?

Why do Birds sing?- As I have just been speaking of the nightingale, perhaps it is the most appropriate place for offering a few remarks upon the song of birds: a subject, by the way, of some difficulty. The question, Why do birds sing? has never yet been, I think, satisfactorily answered. It was supposed that the male sang to soothe the female during incubation. (Pennant, quoted in Rennie's Montagu.) There was plausibility in this; but then the question would immediately arise, Why are some birds denied song? Do the females of some birds require soothing more than others? Besides, birds sit during the night as well as the day, yet no bird but the nightingale sings during the night. The skylark frequently mounts so high that we not only lose sight of him, but we also lose all trace of his song: can the female then hear him and be soothed by his notes? Barrington (quoted in Rennie's Montagu) supposed the female to be silent, "lest her song should discover her nest." A singular conclusion, certainly, at the same time that it was supposed that the male sang to soothe the female during the period of incubation. If the song were poured forth for this soothing purpose, it must of course have been in the near neighbourhood of the nest, and consequently would be as likely to discover the nest as if the female herself sang; besides, do not the females of some birds sing occasionally, as well as the males? Now comes another theory. "The males of song birds do not, in general, search for the females, but, on the contrary, their business in the

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