or Lithuanian hands. Two things, however, may be regarded as certain: that the stone figures of the steppes are of Turko-Tataric origin, and that the date of their Baltic reproductions is considerably later than neolithic times.

ARTHUR J. EVANS.

From The Spectator.

THE LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS.

and birds were saying, and thence deduce that those who were exceptionally wise did actually know. Solomon, being the wisest of mankind, must, they thought, have known, and consequently in all legends about Soloman that power is attributed to him, with this addition, that he not only comprehended the speech of the inferior tribes of created things, but that he could use their tongues himself. His thanks to the hoopoes for hovering between him and the sun, which gained those birds their feather crowns, but cost them a grand THE universality of the idea that ani- massacre, were delivered to them direct, mals can talk, and that some few human and in clear hoopoese. It is probable, too, beings have acquired their languages, that a circumstance never clearly explained about which Mr. F. G. Frazer discourses had been observed in very early ages, and in this month's Archæological Review, is had been used to create an impression of curious chiefly for this reason. It is a a mysterious knowledge possessed by indirect contradiction to universal and un- dividual men. It is quite certain that a broken human experience. Nobody ever few persons of either sex have some undid understand the "talk" of beasts or explained attraction for beasts, birds, and birds, or meet anybody who understood it, even bees; that "the creatures," as Mrs. or obtain any evidence worth a straw that Oliphant calls them, have a special conit had ever been understood. Some of fidence in them, and that on occasion Mr. Atkinson's Bushmen in South Africa they will come at their call. We all know told him, it is true, that they understood people whom dogs will lick at sight; the talk of the apes to each other; but he there are children at whose call loose did not believe them, or, we imagine, think horses, otherwise uncatchable, will come it probable that they believed themselves. back to the halter; and there are men who The statement was only rudimentary brag- can attract the birds of the air. Some ging. Most ideas widely entertained, even years ago, a man used to display that that of the hibernation of swallows under power in the Tuileries' gardens every water, have a basis of some sort under evening, and so far as could be observed, them; but this one, though it extends to he did not distribute any food. Any man the most diverse families of men, has of the earlier day possessed of that attracapparently none. It is one of the few tion would be likely to exaggerate it, and, instances of pure imagination common to like the medicine-men of the Indians of the entire human race. Its genesis, how-to-day, pretend that the beasts brought ever, is not difficult to explain, and it has probably not been communicated from one tribe to another, but has started up con stantly afresh. Beasts do roar and bellow and bark and squeak, birds do sing and chirp and twitter, and it is certain that some, if not all of the sounds they make, are intelligible not only to their own kind, but in some limited degree to other animals or birds. The rook knows when to fly before the cry of the hawk, and the bay of the hound tells the fox of something more than his mere presence. Some men living much among animals or birds, moreover, learn to know many of their cries, and can tell unerringly whether they sig nify anger, or pleasure, or menace, or even perplexity or doubt. It is quite natural, therefore, that early men, wholly unaware of any experience other than their own, and keenly conscious of their own ignorance, should fancy that if they were only wise, they would know what the beasts

him information for the guidance of the tribes. That would be taken as proof positive that some men at least understood beast-talk and bird-talk. And there is another reason yet, on which we have a word to say.

Is it not, on the whole, extremely surprising that human beings understand so little of the meaning of the sounds made by beasts and birds familiar to them for many generations? The creatures all utter sounds. They all utter, or at least they all seem to utter, the same sounds to express the same emotions. The love-cry of the nightingale, the low by which a cow recalls a straying calf, the grunt of a pig when it sees food, the mew of a cat which wants the door opened - that is, wants to attract at tention the bark of a domesticated dog to testify recognition, and the howl of an uncivilized dog as the moon rises, or of a civilized dog when the church-bells begin, are all, to human ears at least, unchanging

ing? If you say they are never the same, that is an answer, but then it is an untrue one, as any gamekeeper will testify; or if you say they have no meaning, that is an answer, but then it does not consort with experience. All people keep cats, and most people are worried with them at night. Let any reader kept awake by them listen for five minutes to the sound of the miauling of a love-making cat, and compare it with the ordinary mew. It is to tally different, and it never changes; and a series of sounds peculiar in meaning and never changing are equivalent to speech. Yet a man shall learn more languages than Mezzofanti or Dr. Carey sooner than he will learn one set of sounds uttered by a beast or a bird. Why?

sounds, sounds with one meaning and no | rience seems to indicate, those cries are other, and containing always the same always the same, and always have a meannotes. The creatures, in these instances at least, utter definite sounds, and it is hard to believe that they do not do the same on other occasions. The little parrots called minas, when angry with one another, swear at each other perceptibly — that is, scream with a note wholly distinct from the one they use on any other occasion and crows, when setting their sentries or warning their comrades of danger, utter a sound more like a bark than a caw. Oxen employed in field-work listen to one another's lows, and raise their heads to attend to the sounds, which when they are collecting to go home are so regularly the same, that even human beings can understand their meaning. The creatures, in fact, "speak," in a limited way; and as a few of them-dogs and horses, for example understand the words of men, some words even when not addressed to them, they probably understand one another. But if they utter sounds with meaning, and always the same meaning, they use language, in however limited a degree; and by what a priori reasoning is it shown to be impossible to learn that language? Why, for example, is it ludicrously absurd to suppose that a man studying the jabber of an ape for twenty years, as some of the missionaries have studied the "clicks" of the clicking races, should learn to know with much accuracy what that jabbering meant? If it were impossible for man to learn an unknown tongue without an interpreter, the answer would be easy; but we know this is not the case, for uneducated men cast among savages, have in repeated instances learned to speak their language. Cortez's Mexican mistress, too, learned to speak and comprehend Spanish, though neither Cortez nor any other Spaniard knew, or by possibility could know at first, a word of Mexican. We are not saying for a moment, be it understood, that beast "language" could be learned. The whole history of human experience pronounces it impossible; but the rationale of the impossibility is most difficult to discover. The beast or bird has no thoughts? Grant this, though it is the purest assumption, utterly contradicted by the sullenness of a scolded dog, or the malice of a provoked monkey; but what has that to do with the matter? The parrot has no thoughts, but we understand the parrot when he pronounces human vocables, and why can we not understand him after long experience when he utters his own cries, if, as expe

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Suppose for a moment that by incessant and continuous attention, man had learned to comprehend, and what is more difficult, to register, the meaning of the cries uttered by the few animals he has domesticated, say, as accurately as the animals have learned to understand the cries he addresses to them, had, for example, found as definite a meaning for certain barks as a dog finds for certain whistles, what should we have gained? Not much, but yet something. The idea of the early peoples or childlike peoples that the beast or bird could reveal something worth hearing, is, of course, nonsense, unless we assume - the exact contrary of the appar. ent fact that a beast can converse. That is a communication of thoughts, and is as impossible on the apparent evidence as the communication of thoughts by a little baby, whose cries, nevertheless, its mother often understands. All we should gain is clear knowledge when the creature was pleased or displeased, when it was hungry, when it was sick, when it was surprised or frightened, when, in fact, it felt any emotion. We can nearly tell this much now about some animals; but we should then be able to tell it with much more certainty and continuance of conviction. Our experience of animals would be much deeper, and would be less strictly confined to the individual creature. The result, we fancy, would be a perceptible increase in the power of control, which would be further enlarged by this. The sound you understand you can imitate; and we should use sounds to call attention, to encourage, to warn, or to summon, which the beast would either learn more readily than our words, or would understand without learning at all. The communication between man and the

brutes which already exists in an inchoate | meaning of the beasts' cries would be and imperfect form would be facilitated, equivalent to many new whistles, and give and it is on that communication that man's us perhaps unexpected words of command. authority for all useful purposes mainly That is all we should get; and that little, rests. The dog who could understand no after three thousand years of experience, whistle would be of little value, and the is as far off as ever. It is more than that horse which would neither stop nor go on time since Nimrod, and we do not yet know at the word of command would be compar- for certain whether a horse likes to go atively a nuisance. A knowledge of the hunting or no.

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FRAGMENTS OF A CONVERSATION IN A COUN- Soul-thrilling words of love bade him rejoice,

unpublished by me."- Mr. Blunt's Letter, Times, And when the night came and his eyes grew March 26th, 1888.]