thousand and eighty steps. They climb also in various ways and with great skill; some by claws which lay hold on irregularities in the surface of bodies, some by means of soft cushions formed of dense hairs which line the under part of their limbs, some by suction, and others by means of a tenacious fluid which enables them to adhere against the force of gravity.

Insects also swim and dive. Some of them swim by the help of broad, flat hind legs, acting like paddles; others have a fringe of hairs placed in a suitable position to answer the same purpose. Some swim or float along upon the back, whilst others skate, or run upon the surface of the water.

They burrow as the mole does, principally by the head and fore legs where substances are soft, or by the aid of the jaws where they are hard. Many species in this way provide themselves with habitations: ants in the earth, many wasps in wood, and the house cricket in mortar. They bore also in search of food, and to provide a suitable place for depositing their eggs.

Some of the motions of other classes present a striking contrast in their sluggishness and drowsiness with those observed in Insects; so much so that it is not an uncommon notion, that both the fresh and salt water mussels have not the locomotive faculty. But this is a vulgar error. It is almost unnecessary to mention that the exterior part of mussels consists of two shells hinged together, which the animals can open or shut at pleasure. Every person must likewise have observed, in the structure of the animal itself, a fleshy protuberance of a much redder color, and denser consistence, than the other parts of the body. This muscular protuberance, which consists of two lobes, has been denominated a trunk or tongue; but it is an instrument by which the creature is enabled to perform a progressive though a very slow motion; and, therefore, in describing its manner of moving, I shall call these two lobes the animal's tentacula or feet.

'When inclined to remove from its present situation, the river mussel opens its shell, thrusts out its tentacula, and, while lying on its side in a horizontal position, digs a small furrow in the sand. Into this furrow, by the operation of the same tentacula, the ani

mal makes the shell fall, and thus brings it into a vertical position. We have now got our mussel on end; but how is he to proceed? He stretches forward his tentacula, by which he throws back the sand, lengthens the furrow, and this fulcrum enables him to proceed on his journey.'

CHAPTER V. (W.)

VOICE OF ANIMALS AND THEIR MODES OF COMMUNICATION.

As the existence of sight implies objects to be seen, the existence of hearing implies sounds to be heard. Nature is full of these. To man all of them are more or less significant, and are the objects of his attention; that of other animals is chiefly engrossed by those that serve to warn them of danger, to direct them to their food, or to establish an intercourse with others of their own species.

Voice, in its proper sense, is confined to those animals that breathe air through a windpipe by means of lungs. Hence it belongs only to the vertebral animals of the first three classes, Mammalia, Birds, and Reptiles. The air entering the lungs for the purposes of respiration is, in its passage, chiefly in expiration, made to vibrate by an apparatus provided for the purpose, which gives origin to sound. This apparatus, called the larynx, is, in man and quadrupeds, placed at the top of the windpipe. In birds it is situated lower down, where the canal divides to pass to the lungs. The structure of these organs is too complicated to be made intelligible in all their details without actual inspection of the parts themselves. It is sufficient here to say that the principle upon which vibration takes place is the same as that upon which it depends in some wind-instruments, as the hautboy and the clarinet, but modified so as to produce variations far more delicate.

The possession of voice does not imply the use of words, but

independently of words, it is still capable of conveying a great variety of information from one individual to another.

By mere voice, without articulation, animals express their wants, their pleasures, their passions, and their affections; and this is, in some measure, the case even in our own species. But in man the power of articulation, or the utterance of words, adds almost indefinitely to its capacity. Articulation does not depend upon the same organs as voice. It consists in a modification which voice receives as it passes through the mouth, throat, and nose. Articulation embraces two distinct kinds of sound, the vowel and consonant. In the former the sound is continuous, and its character is derived from the form assumed by certain parts of the mouth and its neighborhood, through which the air passes. In consonants, there is a more or less complete interruption of the current of air. Every one can determine this difference by experiment in his own person. The real distinction between vowels and consonants, however, is not so strongly marked as is usually represented. Although when a vowel sound is uttered it may be in a certain sense indefinitely prolonged, yet the peculiarity of the sound is confined to its commencement, and has in it something of the character of the consonant, of which the prolongation is destitute. Thus the prolonged sounds of a, e, and i are alike, and those of o and u but a little if at all different; whilst some consonants, as s and l, are quite as capable of prolongation. These points, however, though sufficiently curious and interesting, do not come within the plan of this work.

A few birds can imitate human articulation, as explained in another chapter, but, so far as we are able to distinguish, the voice of most animals chiefly consists in the production of the vowel sounds. Still there is in some quadrupeds an imperfect approach to the production of consonants, as of n in the horse, m in the cow and cat, b in the dog, and q in the hog. In birds, and in some reptiles, there is a nearer approach to the articulation of consonants, as in the parrot, the bobolink, the whippoorwill, and the frog. Probably there are many modifications of voice among animals which we do not recognize, but which convey distinct information from one to another of the same species.

In the chapter on the Artifices of Animals will be found an

account of the operations and manners of monkeys, which seem to imply the possession of a language capable of conveying a considerable variety of ideas and expressing a variety of emotions and passions. That it is totally unintelligible to us, and that it appears like an inarticulate chattering, is no certain proof that it actually is so; since the same is true of the rapid talking of persons in an unknown tongue, and especially of that of the more barbarous and uncultivated savages, like those of Australia and Van Diemen's land. Had we the same aid, by means of a common nature, of analyzing the sounds uttered by monkeys that we have with regard to savages, we might perhaps attain to a knowledge of the precise character of the language they employ, and find that it has, at least, some approach to an articulation like that of man.

Among the invertebral animals, the principal examples of the production of sound exist among insects. In them it is not effected by the organs of respiration, but by means simply mechanical. There are many sounds produced by them which have no purpose corresponding to that of voice as a means of communication, but are purely accidental. Such are the humming and buzzing produced by their wings, and the noise made by large armies of locusts when feeding, which has been compared to the crackling of flames driven by the wind. But there are other sounds, apparently intended to answer a distinct purpose, although we cannot always understand what that purpose is. Such are the humming and singing sounds of gnats, flies, mosquitos, bees, &c. These are not always, if ever, produced by the mere vibration of the wings, but by that of a membranous plate situated upon the chest, which seems intended for this purpose only. The vibrations are not occasioned by the passage of air, but by the muscular contractions of the insect, which, it has been calculated, occur three thousand times in the minute. The hum of bees varies with the circumstances under which it is made, being sometimes angry, sometimes plaintive, and sometimes joyThe queen produces peculiar sounds, which are taken note of by the rest of the swarm and govern their motions.

ous.

Among the most noisy of insects are the cricket and some of the tribe of grasshoppers. One of these, popularly called a locust,

is remarkable for the loudness and shrillness of its note, in which it will sometimes persevere for a long time. It is usually heard in very warm summer days. In Brazil there is a species which it is said may be heard at a mile's distance. The sound in some of them is made by the rubbing of the covers of their wings upon each other, and in some by the vibrations of a horny drum or membrane. Some of the luminous insects have also this power, especially the great lantern-fly of Guiana, which disturbs the night by sounds resembling that of a razor-grinder. Among the white ants, the neuters or soldiers appear to direct the workers or laborers by striking some hard substance with their mandibles, which elicits a shrill, quick sound, whilst the laborers answer with one resembling a hiss. The insect called the deathwatch produces its peculiar sound in the same way.

Beside communication by sounds, it is evident that there are among animals other ways by which information is given and received. We often observe this in our domestic species, but it is still more remarkable among those in a wild state. It appears to be a language of signs, resembling, to a certain extent, that which serves for intercourse with the deaf and dumb, or more strikingly with those who are deaf and blind. It is wonderful in these last cases to notice by what very slight and almost imperceptible signs ideas are communicated, even those of a complex and abstract nature. When we reflect how very simple are the wants and ideas of animals, and how limited the range of subjects on which it is necessary for them to communicate, it is not at all incredible that there may exist a very perfect language of signs of this description among them, so minute as to be undetected by us, and yet quite intelligible to them.

The various tribes of ants furnish remarkable examples of this sort of communication. Contact seems to be necessary, as it is to the deaf and blind. "If you scatter the ruins of an ant's nest in your apartment, you will be furnished with a proof of their language. The ants will take a thousand different paths, each going by itself to increase the chance of discovery; they will meet and cross each other in all directions, and perhaps will wander long before they can find a spot convenient for their reunion. No sooner does any one discover a little chink in the