Animal communication

“ The communication is always effected by gesture or tones of barking, and the ideas are always of such a simple nature as that of a mere 'follow me.' According to my own observations, the dogs must be above the average of canine intelligence, and the gesture they invariably employ is a contact of heads, with a motion between a rub and a butt. It is quite different from anything that occurs in play, and is always followed by a definite course of action. ”

“ If these speaking forms could be brought to breed in captivity, and something like the selective care were given to their development that has been devoted to the varieties of pigeons, we might well expect to attain very remarkable results. If anywhere in the animal world there is a chance to open communication by means of speech with the lower creatures, it should be here. ”

“ Such intentional communication as is to be found in animals, if indeed we may properly so call it, seems to arise by an association of the performance of some act in a conscious situation involving further behaviour for its complete development. Thus the cat which touches the handle of the door when it wishes to leave the room has had experience in which the performance of this act has coalesced with a specific development of the conscious situation. ”

“ From the many anecdotes of dogs calling others to their assistance, or bringing others to those who feed them or treat them kindly, we may indeed infer the existence of a social tendency and of the suggestive effects of behaviour, but we cannot derive conclusive evidence of anything like descriptive communication. ”

“ Certain things in animal life lead me to suspect [Pg 96] that animals have some means of communication with one another, especially the gregarious animals, that is quite independent of what we mean by language. It is like an interchange or blending of subconscious states, and may be analogous to telepathy among human beings. Observe what a unit a flock of birds becomes when performing their evolutions in the air. They are not many, but one, turning and flashing in the sun with a unity and a precision that it would be hard to imitate. ”

“ There can be but little question that in all cases of animals under natural conditions such behaviour has an instinctive basis. Though the effect may be to establish a means of communication, such is not their conscious purpose at the outset. They are presumably congenital and hereditary modes of emotional expression which serve to evoke responsive behaviour in another animal—the reciprocal action being generally in its primary origin between mate and mate, between parent and offspring, or between members of the same family group. ”

“ Perhaps the safest position is to assume that rationality and true speech are in large measure different aspects of one evolutionary movement—speech arising out of such preceding modes of communication as were considered in the second section of this chapter; reason developing out of intelligence which supplies its necessary data. It is sometimes said that, notwithstanding their powers of speech, savages in their social relations show little advance on animal communities. ”

“ At any rate, if animals lack the means of descriptive inter-communication, and have no words as concrete pegs on which to hang abstract ideas, their explanations [324] cannot be carried far. Theories without the power of disputation would be a poor solace in leisure moments. ”

“ We believe that a communication with animal life will be the great zoological discovery of the future, though at present scarcely a single experiment is being made to aid a work which, like meteorology, can only make a start on the results of experiments and observations continuously made, and frequently verified. ”

“ Their care is to catch the varying, elusive personalities which dwell back of the luminous brain windows of the dog, the horse, the deer, or wrap themselves in reserve behind the inscrutable eyes of all the cats, or sit aloof in the gaze of the hawk and the eagle. The animal story at its highest point of development is a psychological romance constructed on a framework of natural science. ”

“ Such wonderful evidences of the astonishing sagacity of animals have come to the knowledge of every man and woman that, when these instances are remembered, I consider myself well on the road toward demonstrating the assertion that there is a language of communication between animals. ”

“ No one who has watched a cat with her kittens, or a sheep with her lambs, can doubt that such “dumb animals” are influenced in their behaviour by suggestive sounds. The important questions are, how they originate, what is their value, and how far such intercommunication—if such we may call it—extends. ”

“ But even among the latter, we find instances of this sense being in active use—in the case of dogs, horses, geese, etc., especially. Who of us is not familiar with the strange actions of the dog, or the horse, when the animal senses the unseen and unheard presence of some person or animal? Very often we would scold or punish the animal for its peculiar actions, simply because we are not able to see what is worrying it. ”

“ Every communication has two ends, one sending, the other receiving; and of a thousand owners there are hardly two who know how properly to handle a dog either by speech or by silence. Still again, one assumption implied in the question is that dogs or any other animals of the same kind are all alike; and that common assumption is very wide of the fact. ”

“ In the power of communicating with each other which these dogs evidently possessed, and which, in some instances, has been displayed by this species of animal, a faculty seems to be developed of which we know very little. ”

“ The question now arises, Can any animal distinguish between the sounds of the footsteps of our many wild and domestic animals? Can any one of them recognize the difference between the steps of a man, fox, cow, or rat? Now, a weasel, for instance, would not fear a cow or a sheep, but would flee ordinarily from a man or a dog, and so such power of discrimination would be very useful to it. I am positive that they can distinguish, in the manner pointed out, between friend and foe, and so are not required to seek safety at every unusual sound. ”

“ It seems, therefore, that the sounds made by animals, and certain other modes of behaviour, may be regarded as primarily instinctive acts which have been evolved with the biological end of affording suggestive stimuli furthering intercommunication between the members of the social group. Their performance, however, affords data to consciousness, which intelligence makes use of in the guidance of behaviour in accordance with the results of experience. ”

“ The simple fact is that they ‘talk shop,’ and when you hear them discussing the characters and qualities of each individual animal you may be tempted to smile in a superior way, but it will not eventually escape you that they think and observe, and that they study their animals and reason out what to do to make the most of them; and when they preach patience, consistency and purpose, it is the fruit of much experience, and nothing more than what the best of them practise. ”

“ It is admitted by all that articulate speech is peculiar to Man. The possession of this faculty, however, does not seem to be inconsistent with the view of his animal descent. It is well known that animals communicate their ideas by means of touch, sounds, etc.: thus, the Dog barks in different ways, expressive of pain, anger, joy, despair, entreaty. ”

“ It is true that to some extent these means of utter ance are common to the lower animals, the power of ex pressing emotion by cries and tones extending far down in the scale of animal life, while rudimentary gesture-signs are made by various mammals and birds. ”

“ Whether because they lack this strange talking instinct, or because they simply haven’t anything in particular that they want to say, no group of animals has ever invented a language, nor has any single animal ever learned to talk our human speech. A parrot can utter words ”

“ I refer to the man, known in almost every village, who has some special gift for training or managing animals, who seems to know instinctively what goes on in a brute’s head, and who can send his own will or impulse into the lower mind. I would explain that unrelated man, naturally, by the simple fact or assumption that he has inherited more than usual of the animals’ gift of silent communication. ”

“ The foundations of intercommunication, like those of imitation, are laid in certain instinctive modes of response, which are stimulated by the acts of other animals of the same social group. These have been fostered by natural selection as a means of social linkage furthering the preservation, both of the individual and of the group. ”

“ In that interaction between instinct and intelligence which, when further detailed work has sifted and purified our knowledge of the psychology of animal communities, may prove sufficient to account for the well-established facts, animal tradition will probably have to be recognized as of no little importance. When a newly emerging ant or bee, or a young bird or mammal is born into a community where certain modes of behaviour are already in full swing, an imitative tendency of the follow-my-leader type may lead it to fall in line with the traditional habits. ”

“ Seeing that this attitude permeates the whole discussion, it is somewhat disconcerting to read in the concluding remarks that, "to fully understand mimicry, we must appreciate general animal intelligence, and then we shall probably comprehend how much activity has been displayed by animals seeking protection by adaptive and assimilative efforts. ”

“ I would merely take this occasion to reaffirm with confidence the belief, which I find shared by practically all observers whose lives are passed in the closest relationship with animals,—by such vitally interested observers, for instance, as keepers, trainers, hunters, and trappers,—that the actions of animals are governed not only by instinct, but also, in varying degree, by processes essentially akin to those of human reason. ”

“ Folk who loved their animal comrades—their dogs, horses, cats, parrots, elephants—were observing, with the wonder and interest of discoverers, the astonishing fashion in which the mere instincts of these so-called irrational creatures were able to simulate the operations of reason. ”

“ As a purely speculative consummation, therefore, the time may come when telepathy shall appear as the natural or perfect communication among enlightened minds, and language as a temporary or evolutionary makeshift. But that beckons us away to an imaginative flight among the clouds, and on the earth at our feet is the trail we must follow. [89]
The question why our dogs, if they have the faculty of receiving a master’s message at a distance, do not use it more obviously, is one that I cannot answer. ”

“ They are a means by which each indicates to others the fact of his comforting presence; and they still, to a large extent, retain their primary function. The chirping of grasshoppers, the song of the cicada, the piping of frogs in the pool, the bleating of lambs at the hour of dusk, the lowing of contented cattle, the call-notes of the migrating host of birds—all these, whatever else they may be, are the reassuring social links of sound, the grateful signs of kindred presence. ”

“ That the animals inherit this power of silent communication over great distances is occasionally manifest even among our half-natural domestic creatures. For example, that same old setter of mine, Don, who introduced us to our fascinating subject, was left behind most unwillingly during my terms at school ”

“ We shall, of course, find that tame animals such as the horse, dog, and cat act more wisely in such ways than their wild relations. The dog, for instance, turns his rough idea of using his mouth for carrying food or young ones, to fetching and carrying for his own benefit or his master's. ”

“ Do we not, in fact, forget the evidence that the wild animals know each other by far more subtile means than we might suppose? The dog, even after all these centuries of domestication, still keeps the power to recognize his master, not merely by his scent, but by his foot-fall, when he can not see him. ”

“ Although some anecdotes are commonly interpreted as affording evidence of descriptive intercommunication among animals, we need the decisive results of experiment before this view can be unreservedly accepted. ”

“ In a chapter devoted to the speech of animals we are told how some of the noises made by insects are produced undoubtedly for purposes of communication and how birds, fishes and animals convey intelligence one to another. ”

“ Animals differ as widely in their instinctive faculties as men in their judgments; which partly explains why one setter readily follows his master’s word or hand, or enters into his mood, while another remains hopelessly dumb or unresponsive. The telepathic faculty appears more frequently, as we shall see, among birds or animals that habitually live in flocks or herds, and I have always witnessed its most striking or impressive manifestation between a mother animal and her young, as if some prenatal influence or control were still at work. ”

“ That a sensitive animal [157] should know by feeling (that is, by the reception of a silent message) whether an approaching animal is in a dangerous or a harmless mood is really no more remarkable than that he should know, as he surely does, when it is time for him to migrate or to make ready his winter quarters.
This amazing sensitiveness, resulting, I think, from the reception of a wordless message, was brought strongly home to me one day as I watched a flock of black mallards, forty or fifty of them, resting in the water-grass within a few yards of my hiding-place. ”