Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/854

834 analogous to it, has been noticed in a large number of rodents. The well-known note of the chipmunk, from which it has derived its name, is the only one I have heard from it. After studying a colony of red squirrels for some weeks last summer, I came to the conclusion that they have a capacity of vocal expression much greater than is commonly believed. Their usual "barking," or trilling, seems to be the commonest, the most instinctive, and not largely expressive of anything beyond general satisfaction; but I found that, under excitement, there were many other tones, associated with great complexity of emotion, which I am not prepared to analyze, but which there can be little doubt the creatures themselves employ as a means of intercommunication. Under marked excitement, as the result of repeated interferences, I have heard a red squirrel so mingle tones of a musical kind that a stranger, arriving on the spot, would certainly have been deluded into the belief that he was listening to some bird, or rather to an excited pair of birds. The musical character of this combination, together with its continuity and complexity, would perhaps justify the designation "song." One of the writers on musical mice refers to their singing but little in certain instances, except when excited, which is a point of analogy with the chickaree.

It would appear, therefore, that it is likely that, throughout the order Rodentia, a genuine musical appreciation and executive capacity exists, and in some instances in a very high degree; and that apart from this there is also considerable ability displayed in the expression of states of emotion, at least, by vocal forms. Manifestly, the degree to which animals can express their psychic states—and especially in vocal forms—is a matter of the greatest importance, and I have already elsewhere ("Popular Science Monthly," March, 1887) expressed my conviction that animals have a power of communicating with each other, altogether beyond what has been generally surmised. The subject is beset with great difficulties, and calls for the closest observations.

reviewer, in "The Academy," of Dr. Oliver Lodge's "Modern Ideas of Electricity" emphasizes the promise implied in the present state of scientific research and mathematical investigation that some great step forward is about to be made. "It is because the scientific world," he says, "knows itself to be on the verge of discoveries as to the nature of the ether, more far-reaching possibly than the discovery of the mode of gravitation, that it lives in a state of suppressed excitement, which hinders it sometimes from further progress or from recognition of the relative importance of recent work"; and lie hints that the century which produced Darwin is now ripe for almost a greater genius than he. A similar tone is sounded in Prof. Lodge's book.