HUMAN CRIES OF ANIMALS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 541, 12 February 1913, Page 7

HUMAN CRIES OF ANIMALS.

Ths human voice-; with all its modulations and inflections, is a wonderful thing, yet it is imitated, closely by birds and animals. The effect .produced by these upon persons who hear them for the first time is one in which astonishment and uncanniness are blended. A species of crow in India has s note which exactly resembles the human voice in loud laughing. The Australian bird called th< •'laughing jackass," when warning his feathered mates that daybreak is at hand, utters a cry resembling j troop of boys shouting, whooping, and laughing in a wild chorus. The nightjar has a cry like one lamenting in distress. < Among birds that have the powei of imitation the parrot is the besl known ; but, as a matter of fact, its voice is decidedly inferior to that ol the niina,, a species of starling. Another bird of Australia, the more pork, is frequently heard vehementlj demanding more pork, in a clear stentorian voice.

Our whippoorwill also demands his punishment in a distinct imitation o' the human voice ; and the commanc of the guinea-fowl to come back could easily be mistaken for a humai voice.

Coming to quadrupeds, the cries ol none approach more closely that o the human voice than those of seals when lamenting the loss of theii young. The cry of a wounded hare resembles that of a, child in distress while the fanailiar back-fence wail o the common cat sometimes startle: with 'its solund of a human infant') cry.—"Everybody's Magazine."