ecognize. The bird utters a short, hoarse cry, and repeats it with a
succession of _trrre, trrre_, which is impossible to mistake. When we
hear this cry we may be sure that an enemy is near. Music gives way to
a cry of distress and warning, and the female leaves her nest if the
sounds become piercing. What do we know of the gobbling of the turkey,
which the whistling and the cries of children excite? They are
doubtless responses to those challenges; but what do they mean?

The crowing of the cock, recurring regularly at fixed hours, has some
signification, but we cannot comprehend it. If on a fine afternoon in
autumn the cock crows, and repeats his strain between two and four
o'clock, the countrymen in some places will say there will be a fog on
the morrow, and they are generally not mistaken. Hens do not mistake
his notes either; when a leader of the troop, coming upon a spot rich
in food, utters his peculiar chuckle, they run from all around to
share the find with him. It is evident that the cock has called them
and they have understood him. These facts indicate that there is some
definite sense in this inarticulate language; and examples of it,
taken from other groups, might be multiplied.

The dog, intelligent animal as he is, manifests his affection on
meeting his master, with peculiar cries which vary with the intensity
of his joy. No one could confound these notes of pleasure with those
which he utters when he is angrily driving away a beggar, or when he
meets another dog of unpleasant appearance and puts himself in the
position of attack.

An interesting study of the voice of the dog on guard may be made in
the country at night. If another dog barks in the distance, the house
dog answers in a peculiar manner. He gives a few growls, stops, seems
to listen, begins again, very often getting answers; and, after two or
three interruptions, he terminates his barking with abrupt yelps, loud
at the beginning and long drawn out, and gradually dying away. This
ending of his cries is habitually accompanied by his raising his head
and throwing it back. I have often, when within the house, on hearing
the watch dog bark in this way, opened the window to assure myself on
the subject, and distinguished, as I could not do with the windows
closed, the voice of another watch dog barking in the same way in the
distance--the barkings of the two dogs alternating, one answering the
other. There is in such cases an evident communicat