The Speech of Monkeys

Many observations have already been made on the language of insects, and much diversity of opinion prevails. Very little has been said about the details of their intercourse, but the consensus of opinion is that they must in some way communicate among themselves. To me they seem to live within a world of their own, as other classes of the animal kingdom do. The means of communication used by mammals could not be available among aquatic forms, any more than could their modes of locomotion. Each different class of the animal kingdom is endowed with such characters and faculties as best adapt them to the sphere in which they live; and the mode of communication best fitted to the conditions of insect life would be as little suited to mammals, perhaps, as the feathers of a bird would be for locomotion in the realm of fishes. [Sidenote: LANGUAGE OF INSECTS] I am aware that some high authorities have claimed that insects communicate by sounds. My own opinion is that they employ a system of grating or scratching by means of their stigmata, but that the sound created thus performs no function in the act of communicating, but is only a bi-product, so to speak, and that the jarring sensation transmitted through the air is the real means by which they understand each other, possibly somewhat like telegraphy, in which the sounds are not modulated, but are distinguished by their duration and the interval between them. I do not announce this as conclusive, but merely suggest it as a possible key to their mode of intercourse.