Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 127, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1904 — ANIMAL LANGUAGE. [ARTICLE]

ANIMAL LANGUAGE.

So am da Bo til Shrill mod Low That W« Cannot Hear. Most people suppose a mole to be dumb, but It Is not. A mole-can give « sound so shrill that It hasn’t any effect on the human ear at all and an* other sound eo low- and soft that no tinman being can hoar It Yet a weasel can hear both these sounds as plainly as yon can the report of a gun. and a Bound registering machine—the plionantograpli—will show them both, with scores of other sounds you are deaf to. The usual note of the mole Is a low pur, w hich it uses a good deal while at work underground, and It can also shout at the top of its voice if hurt or alarmed; but, though It shouted and purred In your ear, you wouldn’t hear 1L The Bound register, however, with Its delicate pencil that marks the volume of sound on a paper, gives the quality of both sounds. A weasel, too, which is one of the mole's enemies, can hear these sounds through a couple of inches of earth and often catches the mole when he throws up his hillocks of earth. The common field mouse, too, has a pur that Is altogether beyond you, though you can bear him squeak plainly enough If he is hurt. A death's head moth, too, can squeak, but that Is done by rubbing his wings together and is not a voice at all. But the champion of all creatures for good hearing and one that can hear a •ound that is over 100 degrees beyond your own limit is the common thrush, and you may often amuse yourself by watching him at It. He can hear a lobworm moving underground, locate him by the noise and haul him out Often you may see a thrush stand perfectly still on your lawn, cock his ear and listen Intently, then make a couple of steps and haul out a fat lobworm. Even the starling, which Is about the size of a thrush, cannot do thin, but he knows the thrush can, and, being a disreputable person, with no common honesty, he follows the young thrushes about on their worm hunts and steals the worms from them as soon as they are caught—London Answers.