Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/489

Rh never yet failed to find some trace, at least, of that object to observe which I took the walk.

Whenever I have seen a mink in my meadow-rambles, I have been impressed with the fact that all animals that fear man are as much on the lookout for him, and try as sedulously to avoid him, as they do any of their natural enemies. If they do so, is it at all strange that we so seldom see them when we go bungling about their haunts? We probably never take a walk in the woods that we are not watched by many creatures which we do not see; and many a squeak or whistle which, if heard at all, is attributed to some bird, is a signal-cry of danger made by some one animal which, having seen us, takes this method of warning its fellows. I have more than once tested this in the case of the mink. Mooring my boat near where I had reason to believe these animals had their nests, and remaining perfectly quiet and in hiding, I have usually been rewarded by seeing the minks moving about as soon as their confidence was restored by the absence of all signs of life in or about the boat. They would come out of their burrows, or from under large roots, and dive into the water, or it might be that they carried a mussel from the shore to their retreat.

Any act of this kind, free from the restraint of fear, is in the case of all animals the most interesting and instructive, and, were our opportunities of this kind more frequent, our knowledge of animal life would soon be largely increased.

During the spring and summer of 1874 especially, and at all favorable opportunities since, my out-door studies were largely confined to particular phases of bird-life, rather than to their habits generally. Most prominent among these was that of singing, and its relation to the other utterances of birds, for I had been long under the impression, and since am fully convinced, that a bird's song bears just the same relationship to its various chirps, twitters, and calls, that singing with mankind bears to ordinary conversation. Careful observation will enable any one to see clearly that every bird has a considerable range of utterance. Observe two birds immediately after mating, and what a laughable caricature of a newly-married couple—say on their wedding-journey—are their actions and their low, ceaseless twittering! They also have their petty vexations and their little quarrels, in which the feminine voice is ever the louder and more rapid in its utterance, and its owner enjoys the precious privilege of the last word.

But it may be urged that to constitute language, or something akin to it, these chirps and twitters must be shown to convey ideas. Can one bird tell another anything? it will be asked. To this I answer that, if any one has watched a colony of brooding krakles, or paid close attention to a flock of crows, he has probably satisfied himself upon this point. Crows have twenty-seven distinct cries, calls, or utterances, each readily distinguishable from the other, and each having an unmistakable connection with a certain class of actions; some of which,