things, and within five minutes from the discovery we were in the den ready for action. The little chap gave two or three cries to let us know how badly it hurt his leg to hang there, then bent his small mind upon rendering us assistance.
First we lifted him up bodily, and held him, to remove the strain. Then, by good luck, we had at hand a stout iron bar with a U- shaped end; and with that under the injured wrist, and a crowbar to spring the treacherous overhang, we lifted the foot clear, and lowered little Brownie to the floor. From first to last he helped us all he could, and seemed to realize that it was clearly "no fair" to bite or scratch. Fortunately the leg was neither broken nor dislocated, and although Brownie limped for ten days, he soon was all right again.
After the incident had been closed, I gave the men a brief lecture on the language of bears, and the necessity of being able to recognize the distress call.
You can chase bison, elephants and deer all day without hearing a single vocal utterance. They know through long experience the value of silence.
The night after I shot my second elephant we noted an exception. The herd had been divided by our onslaught. Part of it had gone north, part of it south, and our camp for the night (beside the dead tusker) lay midway between the two. About bedtime the elephants began signalling to each other by trumpeting, and what they sounded was "The assembly." They called and answered repeatedly; and finally it became clear to my native followers that the two herds were advancing to unite, and were likely to meet in our vicinity. That particular trumpet call was different from any other I have ever heard. It was a regular "Hello" signal- call, entirely different from the "Tal-loo-e" blast which once came from a feeding herd and guided us to it.
But it is only on rare occasions that elephants communicate with each other by sound. I once knew a general alarm to be communicated throughout a large herd by the sign language, and a retreat organized and carried out in absolute silence. Their danger signals to each other must have been made with their trunks and their ears; but we saw none of them, because all the animals were concealed from our view except when the two scouts of the herd were hunting for us.
In captivity an elephant trumpets in protest, or through fear, or through rage; but I am obliged to confess that as yet I cannot positively distinguish one from the other.
Once in the Zoological Park I heard our troublesome Indian elephant, Alice, roaring continuously as if in pain. It continued at such a rate that I hurried over to the Elephant House to investigate. And there I saw a droll spectacle. Keeper Richards had taken Alice out into her yard for exercise and had ordered her to follow him. And there he was disgustedly marching around the yard while Alice marched after him at an interval of ten paces, quite free and untrammeled, but all the while lustily trumpeting and roaring in indignant protest. The only point at which she was hurt was in her feelings.
Two questions that came into public notice concerning the voices of two important American animals have been permanently settled by "the barnyard naturalists" of New York.
The Voice of the American Bison. In 1907 the statement of George Catlin, to the effect that in the fall the bellowing of buffalo bulls on the plains resembled the muttering of distant thunder, was denied and severely criticized in a sportsman's magazine. On October 4 of that year, while we were selecting the fifteen bison to be presented to the Government, to found the Wichita National Bison Herd, four of us heard our best bull bellow five times, while another did the same thing four times.
The sound uttered was a deep-voiced roar,—not a grunt,—rising and falling in measured cadence, and prolonged about four or five seconds. It was totally different from the ordinary grunt of hunger, or the menace of an angry buffalo, which is short and sharp. In discussing the quality of the bellow, we agreed that it could properly be called a low roar. It is heard only in the rutting season,—the period described by Catlin,—and there is good reason to believe that Caitlin's description is perfectly correct.
The Scream of the Puma. This is a subject that will not lie still. I presume it will recur every five years as long as pumas endure. Uncountable pages of controversial letters have been expended upon the question: "Does the puma ever scream, like a woman in distress?"
The true answer is easy, and uncontestable by people whose minds are open to the rules of evidence.
Yes; the adult female puma DOES scream,-in the mating season, whenever it comes. It is loud, piercing, prolonged, and has the agonized voice qualities of a boy or a woman screaming from the pain of a surgical operation. To one who does not know the source or the cause, it is nerve-racking. When heard in a remote wilderness it must be truly fearsome. It says "Ow-w-w-w!" over and over. We have heard it a hundred times or more, and it easily carries a quarter of a mile.
The language of animals is a long and interesting subject,—so much so that here it is possible only to sketch out and suggest its foundations and scope. On birds alone, an entire volume should be written; but animal intelligence is a subject as far reaching as the winds of the earth.
No man who ever saw high in the heavens a V-shaped flock of wild geese, or heard the honk language either afloat, ashore or in the air, will deny the spoken language of that species. If any one should do so, let him listen to the wild-goose wonder tales of Jack Miner, and hear him imitate (to perfection) the honk call of the gander at his pond, calling to wild flocks in the sky and telling them about the corn and safety down where he is.
The woodpecker drums on the high and dry limb of a dead tree his resounding signal-call that is nothing more nor less (in our view) than so much sign language.
It was many years ago that we first heard in the welcome days of early spring the resounding "Boo-hoo-hoo" courting call of the cock pinnated grouse, rolling over the moist earth for a mile or more in words too plain to be misunderstood.
The American magpie talks beautifully; but I regret to say that I do not understand a word of its language. One summer we had several fine specimens in the great flying-cage, with the big and showy waterfowl, condor, griffon vulture, ravens and crows. One of those magpies often came over to the side of the cage to talk to me, and as I believe, make complaints. Whether he complained about his big and bulky cagemates, or the keepers, or me, I could not tell; but I thought that his grievances were against the large birds. Whenever I climbed over the guard rail and stooped down, he would come close up to the wire, stand in one spot, and in a quiet, confidential tone talk to me earnestly and gesticulate with his head for five minutes straight. I have heard senile old men run on in low-voiced, unintelligible clack in precisely the same way. The modulations of that bird's voice, its inflections and its vocabulary were wonderful. From his manner a messenger from Mars might easily have inferred that the bird believed that every word of the discourse was fully understood.
The lion roars, magnificently. The hyena "laughs"; the gray wolf gives a mournful howl, the coyote barks and howls, and the fox yaps. The elk bugles, the moose roars and bawls, in desire or defiance. The elephant trumpets or screams in the joy of good feeding, or in fear or rage; and it also rumbles deeply away down in its throat. The red squirrel barks and chatters, usually to scold some one whom he hates, but other small rodents know that silence is golden.
The birds have the best voices of all creatures. They are the sweet singers of the animal world, and to the inquiring mind that field is a wonderland.
The frogs are vociferous; and now if they were more silent they would last longer.
Of all the reptiles known to me, only two utter vocal sounds,—the alligator and the elephant tortoise. The former roars or bellows, the latter grunts.
IV
