the guests. You needn't feel particularly
interested about them. Only the philanthropist's
father and mother—Mr. and Mrs. Ablewhite.

THE LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS.

WHO has not read the Arabian Nights
Entertainments? I pity the man or woman, if any
such there be, who has not; or, if I do not pity
them, I envy the treat in store for them, if they
will turn from the error of their ways, and read the
fascinating book from beginning to end. Among
the stories which first fixes attention is that of the
merchant who understood the language of
animals. And a delightful story it is. In Esop's
Fables, also, where the beasts and the birds talk
to each other and to mankind, no reader, who has
a proper faith in what he reads, is in the least
degree surprised at the sagacity which the
animals put into the most natural language
imaginable. The fox did say the grapes were sour;
the wolf did fix an unconscionable quarrel upon
the poor little lamb which it wanted to
devour, and the lion did really express to the men
its candid opinion upon the favouritism of
portrait-painting. At all events, the youthful
imagination sees no absurdity in the idea. This
brings me to my subject—Is fable entirely wrong
in this respect, and have not all animals a
language of their own? Have not birds a
language which other birds understand? and
insects? and, for that matter, fishes? In the
pride of our superior knowledge, we assert
of ourselves that man is the only animal who
kindles a fire, cooks food, makes clothes, and is
endowed with the faculty of articulate speech.
While granting our own monopoly of fire-
making, cookery, and tailoring, are we quite
sure that we do not arrogate to ourselves a little
too much superiority when we claim that to us
alone is accorded the glorious privilege of
language? Philosophers are very dogmatic on
the subject. "However much," says Professor
Max Müller, "the frontiers of the animal kingdom
have been pushed forward, so that at one
time the line of demarcation between animal
and man seemed to depend on a mere fold of
the brain, there is one barrier which no one
has yet ventured to touch—the barrier of
language." The professor proceeds to quote Lord
Monboddo and John Locke. The first says,
that "As yet no animal has been discovered in
the possession of language, not even the beaver,
who of all the animals we know, that are not
like the ourang-outang, of our own species, comes
nearest to us in sagacity." Locke says, "The
power of abstracting is not at all in brutes;
and the having of general ideas is that which
puts a perfect distinction between man and
brutes. For it is evident we observe no foot-
steps in these of making use of general signs for
universal ideas; from which we have reason to
imagine that they have not the faculty of
abstracting or making general ideas, since they have
no use of words or of other general signs." Are
not these philosophers a little too confident?

We know that there are many creatures on
the earth which are utterly unconscious of the
existence of man; and we might, if we were
not too proud, ask ourselves, in like manner, if
there may not be many things in the animal
creation of which man is necessarily
unconscious. If I walk through the woods on
a bright summer day, or sit under the oaken or
beechen shadows, I am conscious of a tide and
tremor of life around me. I hear the birds
singing, twittering, and chattering, each species
with its own peculiar note. I hear the bees and
the flies buzzing with more or less vigour,
pertinacity, and volume of sound; while a faint
echo comes from the distant pastures, of the
bleating of sheep, the lowing of cattle, the
barking of shepherds' dogs, and the lusty
crowing of the cocks in the farm-yard. I
ask myself whether all these various sounds
may not be as many languages, perfectly
intelligible to the creatures which speak them
to each other, though unintelligible to me.
I know that some animals—the dog especially
—understand many words that I employ,
if I speak emphatically, and that he will do
what I tell him; but, if I do not understand
what one dog says to another, whose fault is it,
mine or the dog's? Man may doubtless claim
that he has a larger vocabulary than the inferior
creation. He has wants more numerous, ideas
more abundant; hopes, fears, recollections, and
aspirations unknown perhaps to their limited
intelligence, and must consequently have a
language more copious than theirs. Language
keeps pace with knowledge, intelligence, and
imagination. A Shakespeare may require fourteen
thousand words to express all his thoughts,
and tell all his marvellous stories; a scientific
writer, obliged to be as accurate, may require
a few thousand more; a modern gentleman, of
average education, may manage to express all
his wants, wishes, and emotions, and carry on
the usual intercourse of life and society, with
four thousand; while an ordinary peasant in
some of our rural districts sometimes gets on
satisfactorily to himself, his family, and his
associates with about five hundred, and can manage
to transact all his business with his horse in
half a dozen. And as it does not follow that
we can truly call such a peasant a man without
a language, even when speaking to his horse,
neither does it follow in the case of a quadruped,
that may have but four or five or even but one
word or sound to express its meaning, that such
quadruped is without a language which its
fellow-quadrupeds may understand. A single sound,
with a rising or a falling accent, or a stronger or
weaker emphasis, may express different meanings;
and the same sound, repeated, twice,
thrice, or four times, with the rising or the falling
accent at the first, second, third, or fourth
repetition, may contain a whole vocabulary for
the simple creatures who emit and understand
the sound, and whose wants and emotions are
as circumscribed as their speech.

Professor Max Müller supplies us with an
illustration in point. He says that in the Chinese,