The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals Part 4

A baboon emits occasionally, and without any warning, a fearful explosive bark, or roar, that to visitors is as startling as the report of a gun. The commonest expressions are "Wah!" and "_Wah'_-hoo!", and the visitor who can hear it close at hand without jumping has good nerves.

The big and solemn long-nosed monkey of Borneo (_Nasalis larvatus_) utters in his native tree-top (overhanging water), a cry like the resonant "honk" of a saxophone. He says plainly, "Kee honk," and all that I could make of its meaning was that it is used as the equivalent of "All's well."

Of all the monkeys that I have ever known, either wild or in captivity, the red howlers of the Orinoco, in Venezuela, have the most remarkable voices, and make the most remarkable use of them.

The hyoid cartilage is expanded,--for Nature's own particular reasons,--into a wonderful sound-box, as big as an English walnut, which gives to the adult voice a depth of pitch and a booming resonance that is impossible to describe. The note produced is a prolonged ba.s.s roar, in alternately rising and falling cadence, and in reality comprising about three notes. It is the habit of troops of red howlers to indulge in nocturnal concerts, wherein four, five or six old males will pipe up and begin to howl in unison. The great volume of uncanny sound thus produced goes rolling through the still forest, far and wide; and to the white explorer who lies in his gra.s.s hammock in pitchy darkness, fighting off the mosquitoes and loneliness, and wondering from whence tomorrow's meals will come, the moral effect is gruesome and depressing.

In captivity the youthful howler habitually growls and grumbles in a way that is highly amusing, and the absurd pitch of the deep ba.s.s voice issuing from so small an animal is cause for wonder.

It is natural that we should look closely to the apes and monkeys for language, both by voice and sign. In 1891 there was a flood of talk on "the speech of monkeys," and it was not until about 1904 that the torrent stopped. At first the knowledge that monkeys can and do communicate to a limited extent by vocal sounds was hailed as a "discovery"; but unfortunately for science, nothing has been proved beyond the long-known fact that primates of a given species understand the meaning of the few sounds and cries to which their kind give utterance.

Thus far I have never succeeded in teaching a chimpanzee or orangutan to say even as much as "Oh" or "Ah." Nothing seems to be further from the mind of an orang than the idea of a new vocal utterance as a means to an end.

Our Polly was the most affectionate and demonstrative chimpanzee that I have ever seen, and her reaction to my voice was the best that I have found in our many apes. She knew me well, and when I greeted her in her own language, usually she answered me promptly and vociferously. Often when she had been busy with her physical- culture exercises and Delsartean movements on the horizontal bars or the trapeze in the centre of her big cage, I tested her by quietly joining the crowd of visitors in the centre of the room before her cage, and saying to her: "Polly! Wah! Wah! Wah!"

Nearly every time she would stop short, give instant attention and joyously respond "Wah! Wah! Wah!", repeating the cry a dozen times while she clambered down to the lower front bars to reach me with her hands. When particularly excited she would cry "_Who_-oo!

_Who_-oo! _Who_-oo!" with great clearness and vehemence, the two syllables pitched four notes apart. This cry was uttered as a joyous greeting, and also at feeding-time, in expectation of food; but, simple as the task seems to be, I really do not know how to translate its meaning into English. In one case it appears to mean "How do you do?" and in the other it seems to stand for "Hurry up!"

Polly screamed when angry or grieved, just like a naughty child; and her face a.s.sumed the extreme of screaming-child expression.

She whined plaintively when coaxing, or when only slightly grieved. With these four manifestations her vocal powers seemed to stop short. Many times I opened her mouth widely with my fingers, and tried to surprise her into saying "Ah," but with no result. It seems almost impossible to stamp the vocal-sound idea upon the mind of an orang-utan or chimpanzee. Polly uttered two distinct and clearly cut syllables, and it really seemed as if her vocal organs could have done more if called upon.

The cries of the monkeys, baboons and lemurs are practically nothing more than squeals, shrieks or roars. The baboons (several species, at least) bark or roar most explosively, using the syllable "Wah!" It is only by the most liberal interpretation of terms that such cries can be called language. The majority express only two emotions--dissatisfaction and expectation. Every primate calls for help in the same way that human beings do, by shrill screaming; but none of them ever cry "Oh" or "Ah."

The only members of the monkey tribe who ever spoke to me in their native forests were the big black langurs of the Animallai Hills in Southern India. They used to glare down at us, and curse us horribly whenever we met. Had we been big pythons instead of men they could not have said "Confound you!" any more plainly or more vehemently than they did.

In those museum-making days our motto was "All's fish that cometh to net"; and we killed monkeys for their skins and skeletons the same as other animals. My brown-skinned Mulcer hunters said that the bandarlog hated me because of my white skin. At all events, as we stalked silently through those forests, half a dozen times a day we would hear an awful explosion overhead, startling to men who were still-hunting big game, and from the middle zone of the tree-tops black and angry faces would peer down at us. They said: "Wah! Wah! Wah! Ah-^oo-oo-Aoo-oo-^oo-oo!" and it was nothing else than cursing and blackguarding. How those monkeys did hate us! I never have encountered elsewhere anything like it in monkey-land.

la 1902 there was a startling exhibition of monkey language at our Primate House. That was before the completion of the Lion House.

We had to find temporary outdoor quarters for the big jaguar, "Senor Lopez"; and there being nothing else available, we decided to place him, for a few days only, in the big circular cage at the north end of the range of outside cages. It was May, and the baboons, red-faced monkeys, rhesus, green and many other of the monkeys were in their outside quarters.

I was not present when Lopez was turned into the big: cage; but I heard it. Down through the woods to the polar bears' den, a good quarter of a mile, came a most awful uproar, made by many voices.

The bulk of it was a medley of raucous yells and screeches, above which it was easy to distinguish the fierce, dog-like barks and roars of the baboons.

We knew at once that Lopez had arrived. Hurrying up to the Primate House, we found the wire fronts of the outside cages literally plastered with monkeys and baboons, all in the wildest excitement.

The jaguar was in full view of them, and although not one out of the whole lot, except the sapajous, ever had an ancestor who had seen a jaguar, one and all recognized a hostile genus, and a hereditary enemy.

And how they cursed him, reviled him, and made hideous faces at him! The long-armed yellow baboons barked and roared until they were heard half a mile away. The ugly-tempered macaques and rhesus monkeys nearly burst with hatred and indignation. The row was kept up for a long time, and the monkey language that was lost to science on that occasion was, both in quant.i.ty and quality, beyond compare.

Bear Language. In their native haunts bears are as little given to loud talk as other animals; but in roomy and comfortable captivity, where many are yarded together, they rapidly develop vocal powers. Our bears are such cheerful citizens, and they do so many droll things, that the average visitor works overtime in watching them. I have learned the language of our bears sufficiently that whenever I hear one of them give tongue I know what he says. For example:

In warning or threatening an enemy, the sloth bear says: "Ach!

Ach! Ach!" and the grizzly says: "Woof! Woof!" A fighting bear says: "Aw-aw-aw!" A baby's call for its mother is "Row! Row!" A bear's distress call is: "Err-_wow_-oo-oo-oof!"

But even in a zoological park it is not possible for everyone to recognize and interpret the different cries of bears, although the ability to do so is sometimes of value to the party of the second part. For example:

One day in February I was sitting in my old office in the Service Building, engrossed in I know not what important and solemn matter. The park was quiet; for the snow lay nine inches deep over all. There were no visitors, and the maintenance men were silently shovelling. Over the hill from the bear dens came the voice of a bear. It said, as plainly as print: "Err-wow!" I said to myself: "That sounds like a distress call," and listened to hear it repeated.

Again it came: "Err-wow!"

I caught up my hat and hastened over the hill toward the bear dens. On the broad concrete walk, about a hundred feet from the dens, four men were industriously shovelling snow, unaware that anything was wrong anywhere except on the pay-roll, opposite their names.

Guided by the cries that came from "The Nursery" den, where six yearling cubs were kept, I quickly caught sight of the trouble.

One of our park-born brown bear cubs was hanging fast by one forefoot from the top of the barred part.i.tion. He had climbed to the top of the ironwork, thrust one front paw through between two of the bars (for bears are the greatest busybodies on earth), and when he sought to withdraw it, the sharp point of a bar in the overhang of the tree-guard had buried itself in the back of his paw, and held him fast. It seemed as if his leg was broken, and also dislocated at the shoulder. No wonder the poor little chap squalled for help. His mother, on the other side of the part.i.tion, was almost frantic with baffled sympathy, for she could do nothing to help him.

It did not take more than a quarter of a minute to have several men running for crowbars and other things, and within five minutes from the discovery we were in the den ready for action. The little chap gave two or three cries to let us know how badly it hurt his leg to hang there, then bent his small mind upon rendering us a.s.sistance.

First we lifted him up bodily, and held him, to remove the strain.

Then, by good luck, we had at hand a stout iron bar with a U- shaped end; and with that under the injured wrist, and a crowbar to spring the treacherous overhang, we lifted the foot clear, and lowered little Brownie to the floor. From first to last he helped us all he could, and seemed to realize that it was clearly "no fair" to bite or scratch. Fortunately the leg was neither broken nor dislocated, and although Brownie limped for ten days, he soon was all right again.

After the incident had been closed, I gave the men a brief lecture on the language of bears, and the necessity of being able to recognize the distress call.

You can chase bison, elephants and deer all day without hearing a single vocal utterance. They know through long experience the value of silence.

The night after I shot my second elephant we noted an exception.

The herd had been divided by our onslaught. Part of it had gone north, part of it south, and our camp for the night (beside the dead tusker) lay midway between the two. About bedtime the elephants began signalling to each other by trumpeting, and what they sounded was "The a.s.sembly." They called and answered repeatedly; and finally it became clear to my native followers that the two herds were advancing to unite, and were likely to meet in our vicinity. That particular trumpet call was different from any other I have ever heard. It was a regular "h.e.l.lo" signal- call, entirely different from the "Tal-_loo_-e" blast which once came from a feeding herd and guided us to it.

But it is only on rare occasions that elephants communicate with each other by sound. I once knew a general alarm to be communicated throughout a large herd by the sign language, and a retreat organized and carried out in absolute silence. Their danger signals to each other must have been made with their trunks and their ears; but we saw none of them, because all the animals were concealed from our view except when the two scouts of the herd were hunting for us.

In captivity an elephant trumpets in protest, or through fear, or through rage; but I am obliged to confess that as yet I cannot positively distinguish one from the other.

Once in the Zoological Park I heard our troublesome Indian elephant, Alice, roaring continuously as if in pain. It continued at such a rate that I hurried over to the Elephant House to investigate. And there I saw a droll spectacle. Keeper Richards had taken Alice out into her yard for exercise and had ordered her to follow him. And there he was disgustedly marching around the yard while Alice marched after him at an interval of ten paces, quite free and untrammeled, but all the while l.u.s.tily trumpeting and roaring in indignant protest. The only point at which she was hurt was in her feelings.

Two questions that came into public notice concerning the voices of two important American animals have been permanently settled by "the barnyard naturalists" of New York.

The Voice of the American Bison. In 1907 the statement of George Catlin, to the effect that in the fall the bellowing of buffalo bulls on the plains resembled the muttering of distant thunder, was denied and severely criticized in a sportsman's magazine. On October 4 of that year, while we were selecting the fifteen bison to be presented to the Government, to found the Wichita National Bison Herd, four of us heard our best bull _bellow_ five times, while another did the same thing four times.

The sound uttered was a deep-voiced roar,--not a grunt,--rising and falling in measured cadence, and prolonged about four or five seconds. It was totally different from the ordinary grunt of hunger, or the menace of an angry buffalo, which is short and sharp. In discussing the quality of the bellow, we agreed that it could properly be called a low roar. It is heard only in the rutting season,--the period described by Catlin,--and there is good reason to believe that Caitlin's description is perfectly correct.

The Scream of the Puma. This is a subject that will not lie still.

I presume it will recur every five years as long as pumas endure.

Uncountable pages of controversial letters have been expended upon the question: "Does the puma ever scream, like a woman in distress?"

The true answer is easy, and uncontestable by people whose minds are open to the rules of evidence.

Yes; the adult female puma DOES scream,-_in the mating season_, whenever it comes. It is loud, piercing, prolonged, and has the agonized voice qualities of a boy or a woman screaming from the pain of a surgical operation. To one who does not know the source or the cause, it is nerve-racking. When heard in a remote wilderness it must be truly fearsome. It says "Ow-w-w-w!"

over and over. We have heard it a hundred times or more, and it easily carries a quarter of a mile.

The language of animals is a long and interesting subject,--so much so that here it is possible only to sketch out and suggest its foundations and scope. On birds alone, an entire volume should be written; but animal intelligence is a subject as far reaching as the winds of the earth.

No man who ever saw high in the heavens a V-shaped flock of wild geese, or heard the honk language either afloat, ash.o.r.e or in the air, will deny the spoken language of that species. If any one should do so, let him listen to the wild-goose wonder tales of Jack Miner, and hear him imitate (to perfection) the honk call of the gander at his pond, calling to wild flocks in the sky and telling them about the corn and safety down where he is.

The woodp.e.c.k.e.r drums on the high and dry limb of a dead tree his resounding signal-call that is nothing more nor less (in our view) than so much sign language.

It was many years ago that we first heard in the welcome days of early spring the resounding _"Boo-hoo-hoo"_ courting call of the c.o.c.k pinnated grouse, rolling over the moist earth for a mile or more in words too plain to be misunderstood.

The American magpie talks beautifully; but I regret to say that I do not understand a word of its language. One summer we had several fine specimens in the great flying-cage, with the big and showy waterfowl, condor, griffon vulture, ravens and crows. One of those magpies often came over to the side of the cage to talk to me, and as I believe, make complaints. Whether he complained about his big and bulky cagemates, or the keepers, or me, I could not tell; but I thought that his grievances were against the large birds. Whenever I climbed over the guard rail and stooped down, he would come close up to the wire, stand in one spot, and in a quiet, confidential tone talk to me earnestly and gesticulate with his head for five minutes straight. I have heard senile old men run on in low-voiced, unintelligible clack in precisely the same way. The modulations of that bird's voice, its inflections and its vocabulary were wonderful. From his manner a messenger from Mars might easily have inferred that the bird believed that every word of the discourse was fully understood.

The lion roars, magnificently. The hyena "laughs"; the gray wolf gives a mournful howl, the coyote barks and howls, and the fox yaps. The elk bugles, the moose roars and bawls, in desire or defiance. The elephant trumpets or screams in the joy of good feeding, or in fear or rage; and it also rumbles deeply away down in its throat. The red squirrel barks and chatters, usually to scold some one whom he hates, but other small rodents know that silence is golden.

The birds have the best voices of all creatures. They are the sweet singers of the animal world, and to the inquiring mind that field is a wonderland.