pable. Their only language consists of various
cries and calls, expressions of pain, alarm, joy, love, anger. They
communicate with one another, and come to share one another's mental
or emotional states, through these cries and calls. A dog barks in
various tones and keys, each of which expresses a different feeling in
the dog. I can always tell when my dog is barking at a snake; there is
something peculiar in the tone. The hunter knows when his hound has
driven the fox to hole by a change in his baying. The lowing and
bellowing of horned cattle are expressions of several different
things. The crow has many caws, that no doubt convey various meanings.
The cries of alarm and distress of the birds are understood by all the
wild creatures that hear them; a feeling of alarm is conveyed to
them--an emotion, not an idea.

How could a crow tell his fellows of some future event, or of some
experience of the day? How could he tell him this thing is dangerous,
this is harmless, save by his actions in the presence of those things?
Or how tell of a newly found food supply save by flying eagerly to
it? A fox or a wolf could warn its fellow of the danger of poisoned
meat by showing alarm in the presence of the meat. Such meat would no
doubt have a peculiar odor to the keen scent of the fox or the wolf.
Animals that live in communities, such as bees and beavers, cooperate
with each other without language, because they form a sort of organic
unity, and what one feels all the others feel. One spirit, one
purpose, fills the community.

It is said on good authority that prairie-dogs will not permit weeds
or tall grass to grow about their burrows, as these afford cover for
coyotes and other enemies to stalk them. If they cannot remove these
screens, they will leave the place. And yet they will sometimes allow
a weed such as the Norse nettle or the Mexican poppy to grow on the
mound at the mouth of the den where it will afford shade and not
obstruct the view. At first thought this conduct may look like a
matter of calculation and forethought, but it is doubtless the result
of an instinct that has been developed in the tribe by the struggle
for existence, and with any given rodent is quite independent of
experience. It is an inherited fear of every weed or tuft of grass
that might conceal an enemy.

I am told that prairie wolves will dig up and eat meat that has been
poisoned and then buried, when they will not touch it if left on the
s