Part 22

What a contrast to all this is the trim feathered form which we may see on the mill pond some clear morning. Alert and wary, the grebe paddles slowly along, watchful of every movement. If we approach too closely, it may settle little by little, like a submarine opening its water compartments, until nothing is visible except the head with its sharp beak. Another step and the bird has vanished, swallowed up by the lake, and the chances are a hundred to one against our discovering the motionless neck and the tiny eye which rises again among the water weeds.

This little grebe comes of a splendid line of ancestors, some of which were even more specialised for an aquatic life. These paid the price of existence along lines too narrow and vanished from the earth. The grebe, however, has so far stuck to a life which bids fair to allow his race safety for many generations, but he is perilously near the limit. Every fall he migrates far southward, leaving his northern lakes, but if the water upon which he floats should suddenly dry up, he would be almost as helpless as the gasping fish; for his wings are too weak to lift him from the ground. He must needs have a long take-off, a flying start, aided by vigorous paddling along the surface of the water, before he can rise into the air.

Millions of years ago there lived birds built on the general grebe plan and who doubtless were derived from the same original stock, but which lived in the great seas of that time. Far from being able to migrate, every external trace of wing was gone and these great creatures, almost as large as a man and with sharp teeth in their beaks, must have hitched themselves like seals along the edge of the beach, and perhaps laid their eggs on the pebbles as do the terns to-day.

The grebe, denied the power to rise easily and even, to ran about on land without considerable effort, is, however, splendidly adapted to its water life, and the rapidity of its motions places it near the head of the higher active creatures,--with the woodchuck near the opposite extreme.

THE VOICE OF THE ANIMALS

Throughout the depths of the sea, silence, as well as absolute darkness, prevails. The sun penetrates only a short distance below the surface, at most a few hundred feet, and all disturbance from storms ceases far above that depth, Where the pressure is a ton or more to the square inch, it is very evident that no sound vibration can exist. Near the surface it is otherwise. The majority of fishes have no lungs and of course no vocal chords, but certain species, such as the drumfish, are able to distend special sacs with gas or air, or in other ways to produce sounds. One variety succeeds in producing a number of sounds by gritting the teeth, and when the male fish is attempting to charm the female by dashing round her, spreading his fins to display his brilliant colours, this gritting of the teeth holds a prominent place in the performance, although whether the fair finny one makes her choice because she prefers a high-toned grit instead of a lower one can only be imagined! But vibrations, whether of sound or of water pressure, are easily carried near the surface, and fishes are provided with organs to receive and record them. One class of such organs has little in common with ears, as we speak of them; they are merely points on the head and body which are susceptible to the watery vibrations. These points are minute cavities, surrounded with tiny cilia or hairs, which connect with the ends of the nerves.

The ears of the frogs and all higher animals are, like the tongue-bone and the lower jaw, derived originally from portions of gills, which the aquatic ancestors of living animals used to draw the oxygen from the water. This is one of the most wonderful and interesting changes which the study of evolution has unfolded to our knowledge.

The disproportionate voices are produced by means of an extra amount of skin on the throat, which is distensible and acts as a drum to increase the volume of sound. In certain bullfrogs which grow to be as large as the head of a man, the bellowing power is deafening and is audible for miles. In Chile a small species of frog, measuring only about an inch in length, has two internal vocal sacs which are put to a unique use. Where these frogs live, water is very scarce and the polliwogs have no chance to live and develop in pools, as is ordinarily the case. So when the eggs are laid, they are immediately taken by the male frog and placed in these capacious sacs, which serve as nurseries for them all through their hatching and growing period of life. Although there is no water in these chambers, yet their gills grow out and are reabsorbed, just as is the case in ordinary tadpoles. When their legs are fully developed, they clamber up to their father's broad mouth and get their first glimpse of the great world from his lower lip. When fifteen partly developed polliwogs are found in the pouches of one little frog, he looks as if he had gorged himself to bursting with tadpoles. To such curious uses may vocal organs be put.

Turtles are voiceless, except at the period of laying eggs, when they acquire a voice, which even in the largest is very tiny and piping, like some very small insect rather than a two-hundred-pound tortoise. Some of the lizards utter shrill, insect-like squeaks.

A species of gecko, a small, brilliantly coloured lizard, has the back of its tail armed with plates. These it has a habit of rubbing together, and by this means it produces a shrill, chirruping sound, which actually attracts crickets and grasshoppers toward the noise, so that they fall easy prey to this reptilian trapper. So in colour, sound, motion, and many other ways, animals act and react upon each other, a useful and necessary habit being perverted by an enemy, so that the death of the creature results. Yet it would never be claimed that the lizard thought out this mimicking. It probably found that certain actions resulted in the approach of good dinners, and in its offspring this action might be partly instinctive, and each generation would perpetuate it. If it had been an intentional act, other nearly related species of lizards would imitate it, as soon as they perceived the success which attended it.

That many animals have a kind of language is nowadays admitted to be a truism, but this is more evident among mammals and birds, and, reviewing the classes of the former, we find a more or less defined ascending complexity and increased number of varying sounds as we pass from the lower forms--kangaroos and moles--to the higher herb-and-flesh-eaters, and particularly monkeys.

Squeaks and grunts constitute the vocabulary, if we dignify it by that name, of the mammals. The sloths, those curious animals whose entire life is spent clinging to the underside of branches, on whose leaves they feed, may be said almost to be voiceless, so seldom do they give utterance to the nameless wail which constitutes their only utterance. Even when being torn to pieces by an enemy, they offer no resistance and emit no sound, but fold their claws around their body and submit to the inevitable as silently and as stoically as did ever an ancient Spartan.

Great fear of death will often cause an animal to utter sounds which are different from those produced under any other conditions. When an elephant is angry or excited, his trumpeting is terribly loud and shrill; but when a mother elephant is "talking" to her child, while the same sonorous, metallic quality is present, yet it is wonderfully softened and modulated. A horse is a good example of what the fear of death will do. The ordinary neigh of a horse is very familiar, but in battle when mortally wounded, or having lost its master and being terribly frightened, a horse will scream, and those who have heard it, say it is more awful than the cries of pain of a human being.

Deer and elk often astonish one by the peculiar sounds which they produce. An elk can bellow loudly, especially when fighting; but when members of a herd call to each other, or when surprised by some unusual appearance, they whistle--a sudden, sharp whistle, like the tin mouthpieces with revolving discs, which were at one time so much in evidence.

The growl of a bear differs greatly under varying circumstances. There is the playful growl, uttered when two individuals are wrestling, and the terrible "sound"--no word expresses it--to which a bear, cornered and driven to the last extremity, gives utterance--fear, hate, dread, and awful passion mingled and expressed in sound. One can realise the fearful terror which this inspires only when one has, as I have, stood up to a mad bear, repelling charge after charge, with only an iron pike between one's self and those powerful fangs and claws. The long-drawn moan of a polar bear on a frosty night is another phase; this, too, is expressive, but only of those wonderful Arctic scenes where night and day are as one to this great seal-hunter.

The dog has made man his god,--giving up his life for his master would be but part of his way of showing his love if he had it in his power to do more. So, too, the dog has attempted to adapt his speech to his master's, and the result is a bark. No wild coyotes or wolves bark, but when bands of dogs descended from domesticated animals run wild, their howls are modulated and a certain unmistakable barking quality imparted. The drawn-out howl of a great gray wolf is an impressive sound and one never to be forgotten. Only the fox seems to possess the ability to bark in its native tongue. The sounds which the cats, great and small, reproduce are most varied. Nothing can be much more intimidating than the roar of a lion, or more demoniacal than the arguments which our house-pets carry on at night on garden fences.

What use the sounds peculiar to sea-lions subserve in their life on the great ocean, or their haunts along the shore, can only be imagined, but surely such laudable perseverance, day after day, to out-utter each other, must be for some good reason!

Volumes have been written concerning the voices of the two remaining groups of animals--monkeys and birds. In the great family of the four-handed folk, more varieties of sound are produced than would be thought possible. Some of the large baboons are awful in their vocalisations. Terrible agony or remorse is all that their moans suggest to us, no matter what frame of mind on the part of the baboon induces them. Of all vertebrates the tiny marmosets reproduce most exactly the chirps of crickets and similar insects, and to watch one of these little human faces, see its mouth open, and instead of, as seems natural, words issuing forth, to hear these shrill squeaks is most surprising. Young orang-utans, in their "talk," as well as in their actions, are counterparts of human infants. The scream of frantic rage when a banana is offered and jerked away, the wheedling tone when the animal wishes to be comforted by the keeper on account of pain or bruise, and the sound of perfect contentment and happiness when petted by the keeper whom it learns to love,--all are almost indistinguishable from like utterances of a human child.

But how pitiless is the inevitable change of the next few years! Slowly the bones of the cranium thicken, partly filling up the brain cavity, and slowly but surely the ape loses all affection for those who take care of it. More and more morose and sullen it becomes until it reaches a stage of unchangeable ferocity and must be doomed to close confinement, never again to be handled or caressed.

THE NAMES OF ANIMALS, FROGS, AND FISH

When, during the lazy autumn days, the living creatures seem for a time to have taken themselves completely beyond our ken, it may be interesting to delve among old records and descriptions of animals and see how the names by which we know them first came to be given. Many of our English names have an unsuspected ancestry, which, through past centuries, has been handed down to us through many changes of spelling and meaning, of romantic as well as historical interest.

How many people regard the scientific Latin and Greek names of animals with horror, as being absolutely beyond their comprehension, and yet how interesting these names become when we look them squarely in the face, analyse them and find the appropriateness of their application.

When you say "wolf" to a person, the image of that wild creature comes instantly to his mind, but if you ask him why it is called a wolf, a hundred chances to one he will look blankly at you. It is the old fault, so common among us human beings, of ignoring the things which lie nearest us. Or perhaps your friend shares the state of mind of the puzzled old lady, who, after looking over a collection of fossil bones, said that she could understand how these bones had been preserved, and millions of years later had been discovered, but it was a mystery to her how anyone could know the names of these ancient animals after such a lapse of time!

Some of the names of the commonest animals are lost in the dimness of antiquity, such as fox, weasel, sheep, dog, and baboon. Of the origin of these we have forever lost the clew. With camel we can go no farther back than the Latin word camelus, and elephant balks us with the old Hindoo word eleph, which means an ox. The old root of the word wolf meant one who tears or rends, and the application to this animal is obvious. In several English and German names of persons, we have handed down to us a relic of the old fashion of applying wolf as a compliment to a warrior or soldier. For example, Adolph means noble-wolf, and Rudolph glory-wolf.

Lynx is from the same Latin word as the word lux (light) and probably was given to these wildcats on account of the brightness of their eyes. Lion is, of course, from the Latin leo, which word, in turn, is lost far back in the Egyptian tongue, where the word for the king of beasts was labu. The compound word leopard is first found in the Persian language, where pars stands for panther. Seal, very appropriately, was once a word meaning "of the sea"; close to the Latin sal, the sea.

Many names of animals are adapted from words in the ancient language of the natives in whose country the creatures were first discovered. Puma, jaguar, tapir, and peccary (from paquires) are all names from South American Indian languages. The coyote and ocelot were called coyotl and ocelotl by the Mexicans long before Cortes landed on their shores. Zebra, gorilla, and chimpanzee are native African words, and orang-utan is Malay, meaning Man of the Woods. Cheetah is from some East Indian tongue, as is tahr, the name of the wild goat of the Himalayas. Gnu is from the Hottentots, and giraffe from the Arabic zaraf. Aoudad, the Barbary wild sheep, is the French form of the Moorish name audad.

The native Indians of our own country are passing rapidly, and before many years their race may be extinct, but their musical, euphonious names of the animals they knew so well, often pleased the ear of the early settlers, and in many instances will be a lasting memorial as long as these forest creatures of our United States survive.

Thus, moose is from the Indian word mouswah, meaning wood-eater; skunk from seganku, an Algonquin term; wapiti, in the Cree language, meant white deer, and was originally applied to the Rocky Mountain goat, but the name is now restricted to the American elk. Caribou is also an Indian word; opossum is from possowne, and raccoon is from the Indian arrathkune (by further apheresis, coon).