The Oregon daily journal., March 15, 1908, Page 32, Image 32

'lra;OEEGOr? ;SOT PORTLANU SUNDAY KORRINC fVWOS'
v "Y
1
..-ri 1.1
m
$8
,; . jr. i
I
m
I -
. i . . u
Great:
votes-.
" ?
ii,viA-'f!,V1 t)f
.v l.nLMfl'l-; !'
' 1 CAiVf J
r
7238
"fTZfne :
r'4
v;.v
X
A
Voices Differ,
not Merely in
Expression, but
in Note
Wfy
V
r x
K l'J
!2
ml;:,'
rir;
c.
51
rHri AV wJV o At? animal world
is not confined to the feathered
songster has been demonstrated
by careful study. The elements of music
Viave a wide range through the kingdom of
beasts.
Recently a little paragraph like the fol
lowing has been going the rounds of the The aboriginal dog vh'at little there is left of
newspapers, along with a lot of other little him whines, growls or howls, but never barks.
itoaratrafihs. under some such head as It is feven recorded that Columbus, returning to
yefpwy over s.oury
Odds nd Ends." "Useless Information " ,Amenca' Ioun? fll cemi,n W tMt. .e had
romness rarugrapns .: state of nature and forgotten how to bark.
Oats have three separate ways of audibly
"According to a musical authority, the
4
Bums
3
1
1 Vvvf-
mi
i.
ill
mooing Ot a COW iS Set to a perfect fifth, OC-- expressing meir ieenngs, eacn one more ex-
me or tenth; the bark of a dog toa four.h SSSS 'SfiLS t!fS !?he- urr rf
I v- l j 74 , satisfied cathood the song of thanksgiving. Is
;pr pttn; tne netgntng or a horse ts a de- tw m sonnd on Mrv tta i,rn,i.
- thought tn some quarters that the quality
wfaa donkey's voice might be improved!"
' ''Music lovers have not been inclined to
flnv SOUTld On Pnrth ttiota hnmiirrhlr r-
went on the chromatic scale; while the don- pressivef The drowsy, sleek, warm, well-fed,
: 'kef. brays sin a perfect octave. Yet it is blissful content of it is a thin that mortals
may envy, vm ueea never Lope to attain.
Yet it is almost entirely a matter of ex
pression. The notes that puss uses to voice her
arml'a mritnnt. ' nm rnmnamfi'iriilir mn1
. , -- - v - f " vw.mmuj ouupic auu
V 1 lfAM 1141 f.ltM.lA 'AWtl 4tf ' I. . - i ..... - T? l.n4AM.H ...I. .' 1 4 Ml 1 1 , .
indeed,' they have been politely incredulous. Bte vaes the intervals from firsts to fifths.
Js a matter of fact, careful investi- F1? """S al?nff acefullr,. on one Lnter"
' .1 ' ' ' v , Tal for 8 while, she will try the next for a
-feators assert, the statement ts all right as change, and so on.
War as it goes. The only trouble is that it Her two expressions of dissatisfaction her
i does not go far. enough. mew and her yowl are far more complex. Her
mew, if she manages it .well, can be made, to
express almost as many things as a dog's bark.
As an expression of plaintive reproach, it is
probably unequaled in the world of sound. Her
yowl, which is, after all, merely her mew at its
strongest and most terrible, is a thing to shud
der at.
To get out of doors among farm animals
M
ANT-animals, it is pointed out, are
notso limited in "the expression of
their emotions as one might suppose.
Take the dog, for instance, as
i he most familiar example. Every one knows
Ulan uiuncuk uugo uaio uuiKicut UBIUS, IUO
'UrueK lover of dogs knows the voice of his own Probably "wnen the "lowing herd winds slowly
' j animals as surely as he - knows the voice of o'er the lea" -no two do their lowing in exactly
tome particular friend. ;
, And even the same, beast has as many dif
ferent barks as he has emotions.
-i , "The watchdog's voice that bays the whis
" pering wind" is an entirely different one ' from
? that in which he greets his master's return, nor
v is its melancholy note to be mistaken for a
. moment for the frenzied excitement with which
' he tells of a stray cat passing just out of reach.
These differ not merely in expression, but 'in
note.
A dog's bark of delight when he under
stands that he is to be taken out, after hours of
.the confinement to which city dogs must sub
I mit, differs radically from the baying of a mas
, tifi chained tip back of the barn, and equally
from the barking of ft great dog introduced by
Haydn into one of his quartets.
Barking proper is said to be an fcccomplish
"mcnt peculiar to civUisod dogs an effort bn
their part to, communicate with their masters.
(1 t
,v-' ' -'v If
s " St
the tame notes. .The mooing of a cow set to a
perfect fifth, forsooth! Why. the mooing of a
cow is set to whatever notes suit that particular
cow's fancy and voice.
A careful observer has noted the demand of
a young cow to be let out to grass. It contains
three notes starts with a descent of a fifth
and then rises one note. But does any one sup-
poo inai uoiasmun s ' soDer nera mat xowea to i
meet its young" expressed itself with any such I
engaging simplicity! Not-at all! '
Some of its remarks have been gathered up ,
and noted for the benefit of the unbeliever.
No two, thus recorded, said the same thing in j
the same way. As for a certain 2-year-old bull, 1
his infrequent expression of his feelings dis- j
played a truly masculine terseness and vigor. .
That animals do say things, by the way, is
beyond peradventure. It is no modern theory, ',
first enunciated by Professor Garner, and ap
plicable only to monkeys. As far back as 1800
there was published in Vienna a curious little
book by O. E. Wetzel, called "A New Discovery
of the Language of Animals, Pounded upon
reason and Experience."
Thcro had been others before it, but none
of such elaborate, if unconvincing, seriousness.
In it the author tried to prove that animals
make themselves understood by a combination
of sounds which constitutes the simplest written
language. He actually published a sort of rudi
mentary dictionary of this language, and tried
to. translate into his native German dialogues
.of dogs, cats, chickens, etc., in illustration of
his theories. He printed an animated conver
sation composed of abrupt little cries in
which it is alleged some captive frogs were plan
ning their escape. As he weakly admits, how
ever, that some of them did escape, it is fair to
conclude that he had not quite caught the drift
of their conversation.
That animals do talk, or have some means
of communication, at least with those of their
own species, seems perfectly plausible. That
any mere man has as yet mastered their lan
guage seems more than doubtful.
A young colt, for instance, had one word of
greeting for his mother; another for a strange
horse, and still another for his owner. And his
remarks when he was alone out of doors, and a
bit uneasy, were unmistakably different from
any of the others. Possibly his mother and the
other horse understood exactly what he said in
each case. His owner only understood that ha
was not saying the same thing.
A grown horse is rather a silent animal.
He rarely gives voice to his feelings. When he
does, it must be confessed that he is rather par-
tial to the chromatic scale. A horse's neighing,
in four cases out of five, takes in part of that
scale, and a good, generous, prolonged whinny
will take in the whole of it. ,
It is not hard to see where the expression,
"a horso laugh," comes from; for it certainly
does sound like a hideous, harsh parody on hu
manity's laughter. Long ago the writer of the
ill 1
5
t
5
3S
'ft
l.v
iferAWzcfj Celt .
Book of ,Jobnoticed the same-thing, and said
of the horse, "He saith among the trumpets
'Hal- Hal' and smelleth the battle afar off." '
But when one is hungry, horse or human, it
is no laughing matter, no cause for wild par
oxysms of inirth. The neigh "of a mare for hay
has been noted. It is short and sharp. . She has
apparently no time to dally with all the notes of
the chromatic scale. Her demand for oats is
a trifle' more leisurely. .
As for the donkey and his cousins, the ass
and the mule, all three must, with due respect
for the octave, be credited with most frequently
using it. Sometimes, in f act,they make a sud
den drop of two octaves. - Occasionally, of
course, they use some of the intermediate notes;
lint' most" frpoiifmtlv thev ci-cn hida'mia Tnt to
. their vfeelings in "sonorous octaves, loud and
slirili."
Several of their remarks .have been noted
and reduced to- musical .characters. One exam
ple is borrowed by Haydn, who does not seem
to have confined his -plagiarisms to the dog.
Both the ass and the horse have been worked
into' bis musio with good effect.. ' :