ANIMAL TALK

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 505, 7 November 1928, Page 6

ANIMAL TALK

We all know quite well that even a puppy or a kitten can “talk** in its own way. A kitten “maiow,” when it asks for milk, is quite different from its purr when you rub its head. Dogs say that they unhappy by whining, show their anger by growls, and give barks of joy when you take them for a walk. And if you have ever listened to f the chattering of magpies, or the twittering of sparrows in the early ( morning, you will know what long l conversations birds hold with each other. They have all sorts of calls J and songs and notes, which mean ; danger, or food, or delight. And even ; insects like crickets “fiddle” with ; their legs, and moths squeak; and 1 bees hum. They all have a kind of i speech which we humans are not clever enough to understand. There is actually a moth to-day which has a “voice.” It makes a kind of harsh call by rapidly moving part , of its breathing apparatus. And we have all heard the croaking and purr- 1 ing of frogs in the pond as spring comes on. ' For, ages and ages ago, long before man appeared on the earth, insects and frogs were “talking” like this—though you would hardly have recognised, it as “speech.” Then, as the animal race developed, century after century, the grunt and growl of four-footed beasts, the song of birds, the hiss of snakes, the bellowing of elephants, the neighing of horses and the chattering of apes, all began to fill the world with animal “talk.” Next time you visit the monkeyhouse at the zoo, listen to the noise from a little distance, and you will find that it sounds very like a crowd of people chattering. It is far more like human conversation than dogs barking, or the mooing of cows,* for example. People who have- studied monkey language say that monkeys really converse with each other by means of sounds, and that they expect an answer when they “talk.” For instance, a sound like whoo means food, and kwee drink. When they are pleased about something, they say khi; and the cry of eek tells the others that there is danger about. STORIES IN TREES Part ot the fortune of a Dutchman has been found in the hollow trunk of a tree near Rotterdam, and the police are at a loss to explain its presence in such a hiding place. Age and hollowness in a' great tree have always suggested a romance and secrets. In Hyde Park there has just fallen a tree of great girth which, planted in Tudor days, had long been protected from the public. Some years ago a park-keeper, scaling the rails, explored the interior of the trunk and found within it all the evidences of a sleeping apartment of a man of means. There, neatly folded and protected, lay an-excellent suit of pyjamas. Adjoining them were other garments, all of costly, material and of admirable cut and condition. Here apparently, in the heart of a tree which Queen Elizabeth knew, was a 20th century bedroom. The garments were gathered together and taken to one of the lodges in the park in the hope that an explanation would be forthcoming, but from that day to this no claim has been made to the property. James Payn, a novelist and literary man of note, who died thirty years ago, imagined a similar use of such a tree, and the tragic sequel forms the substance of his once famous novel “Lost Sir Massingberd. The baronet disappears in his hiding place and is never seen alive again. A few years later some such thing was actually recorded In the Philadelphia newspapers. A hurricane in the Miami Valley tore down a great hollow oak, which was found to contain the body of a man. He was known to have been lost. A soldier under Washington, he had been wounded by Red Indians, climbed the oak by the aid of an adjoining tree, and finding the tree hollow from the crown downward, plunged in to escape pursuit. Then he made the appalling discovery that he had misjudged the depth , °f the hollow; he was imprisoned with--1 out hope of escape. "With him was found a diary he had kept. , I-’ive days without food,” ran the * record in the tree. “It is snowing now. The stars laugh at my misery. I freeze while I starve.” Swallowed by his tree, he died in an English colony; he was discovered in the same tree in the United States republic! i The sea-horse, a native of the Atlan- : tic and Mediterranean, is a small fish ■ about seven inches long. It swims 5 with the body vertical, its solitary l dorsal fin supplying the motive power. : Its hea.d-ami neck give it a curious r«- . semblance to a horse.