The Speech of Monkeys

CHAPTER XXVI. THE SPEECH AND REASON OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. Dash and the Baby--Two Collies talk--Eunice understands her Mistress--Two Dogs and the Phonograph--A Canine Family--Cats and Dogs--Insects--Signs and Sounds. [Sidenote: THE SPEECH OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS] To those who are familiar with rural life, there can be nothing strange in hearing it said that all animals can talk among their kind. Among the daily incidents of farm life, there occur so many proofs of this as to place the question beyond debate. The cattle have means of conveying ideas to other cattle, and sheep and hogs understand other sheep and hogs, and the means employed are sounds. These sounds are used in the same way that man uses them to convey his thoughts, and since they discharge all the functions of speech, in what respect are they not speech? The types of speech differ in different genera, as their physical types do, but they are not any the less speech on that account. Among the domestic animals, I think the dog has, perhaps, the highest type of speech; and this is doubtless, in some measure, due to his intimate relations with man, from whom he has learned and added a little to his mental store, and this must find an outlet through speech. That dogs think and reason is not to be doubted by the most stupid observer, and they often make known their thoughts so that even man can interpret them with certainty; but the speech by which they express those thoughts is of course rudimentary. Dogs often discharge certain duties with such promptness that bigots declare that it is mechanical and done without motive, but there are many thousands of cases where the dog has assumed and performed duties of others, entirely outside of his own sphere, which nothing but reason could have prompted.