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Birds and all Nature, Vol. IV, No 4, October 1898

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<h2>"THE TALK OF ANIMALS."</h2> [This is the title of an article from the London Telegraph, which is so well written, and is so interesting that we cannot deny ourselves the privilege of making liberal extracts from it..]—Ed. NATURALISTS have recently been discussing the interesting question whether or not Bees can talk with each other. Those best informed on the subject are, we gather, inclined to regard it as perfectly possible. Such a view would, perhaps, astonish many minds not familiar with these and others of the lower creatures by daily observation. Yet the more people live in close notice of animals and insects the less inclined they will feel to draw that very difficult line which divides instinct from reason, or to set any hard and fast limit to the wonders of Nature. In fact, the very word "lower" becomes sometimes an insult, a positive affront to the wonderful life about us, which even proud Man himself has scarcely a right to offer. There could, for instance, be nothing well conceived humbler than the Earthworm. Until the illustrious Darwin took up the subject of that despised being no one comprehended the vastness of man's debt to this poor, ugly, trampled creature. The numberless millions of that obscure tribe, none the less, have created all the loam and all the arable land of the whole globe, passing through their bodies the fallen leaves and decaying vegetable matter; and by their single sphere of labor in this respect rendering cultivation and harvests possible. When we tread on that Worm we destroy an agricultural laborer of the most respectable class. To those eternal and widespread toils of the creeping friend of men we owe the woods, the meadows, and the flowers. This is, of course, only an example of the importance, not of the faculties of the lower creatures. Nevertheless even Worms communicate sufficiently to have and to observe their seasons of love; and Bees are so much higher in the scale of life, and so richly gifted in all details of their work, and so sociable in their habits, that it would not be at all a safe thing to say they possess no means of intercourse. Certainly no skillful and watchful bee-master would ever venture upon such an assertion. He knows very well how the sounds in the hive and those produced by individual Bees vary from time to time, and in a manner which appears to convey, occasionally at all events, mutual information. A Wasp or a strange Bee entering a hive without permission seems mighty quickly to hear something not very much to its advantage, and when two or three Bees have found a good source of honey, how on earth do all the others know which path to take through the trackless air, except by some friendly buzz or wing-hint? Now, the bee-masters tell us that there is surely one particular moment in the history of the hive when something very much like actual language appears to be obviously employed. It is when the young queen is nearly ready to move away. She begins to utter a series of faint, staccato, piping noises, quite different from her ordinary note, and just before she flies off this sound becomes altered to a low, delicate kind of whistle, as if emanating from some tiny fairy flute. How this small cry, or call, or signal, is produced nobody understands. The major portion of sounds in a hive is, of course, caused by the vibration more or less rapidly of the wings of the Bees. But whoever has examined the delicate machinery with which the Grass-hopper makes his chirp would not be surprised to find that the queen Bee had also some peculiar contrivance by which to [Pg 141] deliver what may be called the royal speech on the one or two great and signal occasions of her exemplary life. We should, however, confine the subject in the boundary of far too close a fancy if it were imagined that sound was the only way in which speech and intercourse may pass among these humble creatures. Human beings naturally gather up that idea by living themselves in an atmosphere of which they agitate the waves for objects of mutual communication. No scientific Bee or highly educated Ant, if such creatures were possible, seeing and hearing men and women talk to each other, would dream that they could equally well exchange thoughts by making marks upon paper, or send their messages of love and business by seas and lands through a quivering wire. Nay, if report is to be believed, we are soon to be able to transmit, at a flash over long distances, a face, a map, a plan, a picture, a whole page of a newspaper, or an actual scene. As, therefore, those lower creatures, if they indeed could hear us speak, would have no notion of how we make the air waves into words, and still less grasp knowledge of any subtler form among human intercourse, so it is not quite safe for man to think and call all these strange families of the silent world alike dumb, or to despise them for being free of grammars and dictionaries. As a matter of fact, it is obvious that some power of mutual communication assuredly comes to all creatures that live in societies. Nobody can watch the flight of a flock of birds, the behavior of a herd of cattle, or, lower down, the marvelous accommodations for common existence of the small creeping and flying things, without perceiving that they know each other's minds in some way or other in a very satisfactory manner. Evidently there is, to begin with, a common language—a lingua franca—of the fields and of the forests. All sportsmen know how the particular cry of a frightened bird will put all the wild animals on the alert who would otherwise quite disregard the bird's ordinary note. And the evil success with which poachers can imitate the cries of love and defiance from denizens of the woodlands, proves that its inhabitants possess a vocabulary which can be stolen. But, who, in truth, loving Dogs and Cats and such-like humble friends ever can doubt their high intelligence and the strong and clear significance attaching to certain among their habitual utterances? Even London cab and cart Horses, though they cannot—fortunately for some among us—speak, grow to understand the few invariable words of direction which their drivers address to them. In the inferior orders of life there are doubtless many other methods of intercourse, and almost certainly there exists a plain and very useful language of touch. Nobody can read the delightful researches of Sir John Lubbock into the habits and customs of Ants without feeling persuaded that those little beings transact their business perfectly well by touching each other's antennæ. When Ants meet, a rapid passage of these wonderful organs takes place, gliding like rapiers above and below, and this quickly informs them whether they be friends or enemies, which is the nearest respective road home, whether any food is to be procured nigh at hand, and what is the general news in the formicatory world. Truly it would be more desirable to learn what Bees talk about rather than to discuss the problem whether they talk at all. The views of Bees upon the purposes and colors of flowers, upon the moral duties of frugality and loyalty, and as to the real meaning and lovliness of a Rose, would be worth hearing. Of this much we may be all assured, that the little things of the world evade our knowledge as much and are quite as marvelous as the very largest and highest. <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 142] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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