King Solomon's Ring Read online

  One of the most trying things in a room is the bird which flutters through shyness. You have got a chaffinch, he is lovely and sings well. Since you wish to see as well as hear him, you remove the linen cover in which the previous owner, a knowing finch keeper, has draped the cage. The bird takes no notice and sings as before—but only as long as you do not move. You dare move only very slowly and carefully, otherwise the bird hurls itself wildly against the cage bars till you fear for its scalp and feathers. Now, you think, he will settle down and become tame, but here you are mistaken. I have known, as yet, only very few chaffinches that became accustomed to people moving about unconcernedly in their vicinity. But do you know what it entails to have to avoid, in your own room, every hasty movement for weeks on end? Do you realize what it means when you dare not even shift a chair, in case the stupid bird again knocks off its freshly sprouting head feathers? At your slightest movement, you squint towards the chaffinch cage, in fear and trembling that the infernal fluttering will start up all over again.

  Many migratory birds flutter at night, during migration time. Even if the cage has the usual soft roofing and the bird can therefore do itself no serious damage, this nightly fluttering is a most disturbing business not only for the bird, but also for the person who sleeps in the same room. It is not directly due to the migratory urge that the bird storms the bars of its cage, but it is merely awake, cannot sleep, and the urge for movement forces it ever and again to fly off its perch; since it sees nothing in the dark, it knocks blindly against the bars. The only remedy for this nocturnal fluttering is to install a tiny electric light bulb in the cage. It need glow but dimly, just enough for the bird to see the bars and its perches. Only since I discovered this method are my nightly peace and my pleasure in our warblers guaranteed.

  I cannot warn the would-be bird fancier enough against under-estimating the shrillness of a bird’s song which, outside, sounds sweet and mellow. When a male blackbird starts singing lustily in a room, the windowpanes actually vibrate and the cups on the tea-table begin to dance lightly. The songs of the warbler species and of most finches are not too loud for indoors except possibly that of the chaffinch, which may become somewhat irritating by the eternal repetition of its trilling strophe. Altogether, birds which possess a single, never varying strophe should be meticulously avoided by nervy people. It is almost inconceivable that there should be people who not only bear with the common quail but indeed keep him specially for his “pick-perwick”. Imagine three pages of this book inscribed solely with these syllables and you have a good imitation of the quail’s song! Charming as it may sound in the open air, in a room it has on me the same effect as a cracked gramophone record where the needle always gets stuck in the same place.

  Most fraying of all to the nerves is animal suffering. So for this reason, apart from all higher ethical ones, it is urgently recommended to procure only animals of such species as can easily be kept in good health. A tuberculous parrot brings an atmosphere into the house like that of a dying member of the family. Should an animal, in spite of all due caution, become incurably sick, then do not hesitate to accord to it that act of mercy which the doctor, in an analogous case, must deny to his human patient.

  The ability to suffer is, in all living creatures, in direct relation to the extent of their development; this applies, above all, to mental suffering. One of the more stupid animals, such as a nightingale or a small rodent, suffers proportionately much less from close confinement than a raven, a parrot or a mongoose, to say nothing of a lemur or a monkey. To treat one of these clever animals really humanely, one must let it loose from time to time. Such occasional leave from the cage as opposed to permanent confinement seems, at first sight, to imply little essential improvement in the life of the animal. Nevertheless, it makes an inestimable difference to the psychological well-being of the animal. As against permanent imprisonment, it makes exactly the same difference as exists between the life of a continually “tied” human worker and that of a convict!

  Let loose? But do not the wild things run or fly away immediately? Those clever animals that suffer mentally under permanent cage life are the least likely to do so. All animals except the very lowest are creatures of habit and wish at all costs to maintain their accustomed mode of life. It is for this reason that every animal suddenly let loose after a long confinement would return to its cage if it could find its way into it. Most of the small cage birds are too stupid for this. Only a few small passerines, such as the house sparrow and the sand martin, possess enough “spatial intelligence” to find their way through the windows and doors of a house. These are the only small birds which may occasionally be allowed the privilege of free flight. One must, however, bear in mind that such tame free-flying small birds are beset by particular dangers which, owing to their trustfulness, are much greater than those which threaten the wild-living fellow-members of their species.

  The notion, therefore, that a really tame mongoose, fox or monkey, once let loose, must certainly attempt to regain its “precious freedom” for good and all, implies a false anthropomorphization of the animal’s motive. It does not want to get away, it only wants to be let out of the cage. It is no problem to prevent the tame raven, mongoose or monkey from running away; the difficulty is to prevent the animal from disturbing your daily work or Sunday evening peace. I have many years of practice at working in the presence of lively animals and still livelier children, but it annoys me when a raven tries to carry off the pages of my manuscript, when a starling, with the propeller wind of his wings, blows all the papers off my desk; or when a monkey, behind my back, experiments with something breakable so that I must be prepared, every minute, for a violent crash.

  When I sit down at my desk to write, every member of my Noah’s Ark must return to its cage. Those intelligent beings that set value on being released from their cage, can be so well trained that they will go back again on command (all except the mongoose who will not do so at any price!). The dreaded command, once given, is followed by regret on the part of the giver because the animal which crawls so quietly and obediently into its cage tempts one to revoke the order, and this, from an educational point of view, would be most detrimental. But the poor creature, squatting, bored to death in its cage, frays the nerves almost more than it did a few minutes ago when it was free. It is just the same when one permits one’s little daughter to remain in one’s study, but strictly forbids her to speak, or in any other way to disturb one. The inward conflict between good behaviour and the pressing desire to ask a question which is reflected dramatically on the little face, is amongst the sweetest things a little daughter can offer. But it disturbs one’s work more than a whole horde of starlings, ravens and monkeys.

  My old Alsatian bitch Tito had a special knack of making me suffer in this way. She belonged to that exaggeratedly faithful type of dog which has absolutely no private life of its own but can only exist in and beside its master. She would remain lying at my feet, even if I sat for hours and hours at my desk, and she was far too tactful to whine or to call attention to herself by the slightest sign. She just looked at me. And this gaze of the amber-yellow eyes in which was written the question “Are you ever going to take me out?”, was like the voice of conscience and easily penetrated the thickest walls. When I had banished her from the room, I knew, nevertheless, that she was now lying before the front door and that the gaze of those amber-yellow eyes was now unwaveringly fixed on the door-knob.

  As I read through this chapter, particularly the last pages, I begin to fear that I may have laid too much stress on the negative side of animal keeping and have dissuaded you altogether from getting a pet. Do not misunderstand me. If I emphasized so strongly which animals you should not keep, I only did so for fear that disappointment and nerve-racking experiences with your first charge would destroy and spoil forever for you the loveliest and most worth while and instructive of all hobbies. For I take very seriously the task of awakening, in as many people as possible, a deeper unde
rstanding of the awe-inspiring wonder of Nature and I am fanatically eager to gain proselytes. And if someone who has patiently read this book as far as this, has allowed himself to be inveigled into setting up an aquarium or buying a pair of golden hamsters, then I have probably won a true adherent to the good cause.

  Publishers’ Note. English law states that many of the birds mentioned in this chapter (including bullfinch, starling, siskin, goldfinch, hawfinch, chaffinch, robin, blackbird, thrush, nightingale, bearded tit, little owl, quail, sand martin and dabchick), may not be bought or sold in Great Britain, though most (except the nightingale and goldfinch) may legally be captured during the open season. However, in view of the general interest of this chapter, references to all these birds have been left in.

  8

  THE LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS

  Learned of every bird its language,

  Learned their names and all their secrets,

  Talked with them whene’er he met them.

  Longfellow

  Animals do not possess a language in the true sense of the word. In the higher vertebrates, as also in insects, particularly in the socially living species of both great groups, every individual has a certain number of innate movements and sounds for expressing feelings. It has also innate ways of reacting to these signals whenever it sees or hears them in a fellow-member of the species. The highly social species of birds such as the jackdaw or the greylag goose, have a complicated code of such signals which are uttered and understood by every bird without any previous experience. The perfect co-ordination of social behaviour which is brought about by these actions and reactions conveys to the human observer the impression that the birds are talking and understanding a language of their own. Of course, this purely innate signal code of an animal species differs fundamentally from human language, every word of which must be learned laboriously by the human child. Moreover, being a genetically fixed character of the species—just as much as any bodily character—this so-called language is, for every individual animal species, ubiquitous in its distribution. Obvious though this fact may seem, it was, nevertheless, with something akin to naïve surprise that I heard the jackdaws in northern Russia “talk” exactly the same, familiar “dialect” as my birds at home in Altenberg. The superficial similarity between these animal utterances and human languages diminishes further as it becomes gradually clear to the observer that the animal, in all these sounds and movements expressing its emotions, has in no way the conscious intention of influencing a fellow-member of its species. This is proved by the fact that even geese or jackdaws reared and kept singly make all these signals as soon as the corresponding mood overtakes them. Under these circumstances the automatic and even mechanical character of these signals becomes strikingly apparent and reveals them as entirely different from human words.

  In human behaviour, too, there are mimetic signs which automatically transmit a certain mood and which escape one, without or even contrary to one’s intention of thereby influencing anybody else: the commonest example of this is yawning. Now the mimetic sign by which the yawning mood manifests itself is an easily perceived optical and acoustical stimulus whose effect is, therefore, not particularly surprising. But, in general, such crude and patent signals are not always necessary in order to transmit a mood. On the contrary, it is characteristic of this particular effect that it is often brought about by diminutive sign stimuli which are hardly perceptible by conscious observation. The mysterious apparatus for transmitting and receiving the sign stimuli which convey moods is age-old, far older than mankind itself. In our own case, it has doubtless degenerated as our word-language developed. Man has no need of minute intention-displaying movements to announce his momentary mood: he can say it in words. But jackdaws or dogs are obliged to “read in each other’s eyes” what they are about to do in the next moment. For this reason, in higher and social animals, the transmitting, as well as the receiving apparatus of “mood-convection” is much better developed and more highly specialized than in us humans. All expressions of animal emotions, for instance, the “Kia” and “Kiaw” note of the jackdaw, are therefore not comparable to our spoken language, but only to those expressions such as yawning, wrinkling the brow and smiling, which are expressed unconsciously as innate actions and also understood by a corresponding inborn mechanism. The “words” of the various animal “languages” are merely interjections.

  Though man may also have numerous gradations of unconscious mimicry, no George Robey or Emil Jannings would be able, in this sense, to convey, by mere miming, as the greylag goose can, whether he was going to walk or fly, or to indicate whether he wanted to go home or to venture further afield, as a jackdaw can do quite easily. Just as the transmitting apparatus of animals is considerably more efficient than that of man, so also is their receiving apparatus. This is not only capable of distinguishing a large number of signals, but, to preserve the above simile, it responds to much slighter transmissions than does our own. It is incredible, what minimal signs, completely imperceptible to man, animals will receive and interpret rightly. Should one member of a jackdaw flock that is seeking for food on the ground, fly upwards merely to seat itself on the nearest appletree and preen its feathers, then none of the others will cast so much as a glance in its direction; but, if the bird takes to wing with intent to cover a longer distance, then it will be joined, according to its authority as a member of the flock, by its spouse or also a larger group of jackdaws, in spite of the fact that it did not emit a single “Kia”.

  In this case, a man well versed in the ways and manners of jackdaws might also, by observing the minutest intention-displaying movements of the bird, be able to predict—if with less accuracy than a fellow-jackdaw—how far that particular bird was going to fly. There are instances in which a good observer can equal and even surpass an animal in its faculty of “understanding” and anticipating the intentions of its fellow, but in other cases he cannot hope to emulate it. The dog’s “receiving set” far surpasses our own analogous apparatus. Everybody who understands dogs knows with what almost uncanny certitude a faithful dog recognizes in its master whether the latter is leaving the room for some reason uninteresting to his pet, or whether the longed-for daily walk is pending. Many dogs achieve even more in this respect. My Alsatian Tito, the great-great-great-great-great-grandmother of the dog I now possess, knew, by “telepathy”, exactly which people got on my nerves, and when. Nothing could prevent her from biting, gently but surely, all such people on their posteriors. It was particularly dangerous for authoritative old gentlemen to adopt towards me, in discussion, the well-known “you are, of course, too young” attitude. No sooner had the stranger thus expostulated, than his hand felt anxiously for the place in which Tito had punctiliously chastised him. I could never understand how it was that this reaction functioned just as reliably when the dog was lying under the table and was therefore precluded from seeing the faces and gestures of the people round it: how did she know who I was speaking to or arguing with?

  This fine canine understanding of the prevailing mood of a master is not really telepathy. Many animals are capable of perceiving the smallest movements, withheld from the human eye. And a dog, whose whole powers of concentration are bent on serving his master and who literally “hangs on his every word” makes use of this faculty to the utmost. Horses too have achieved considerable feats in this field. So it will not be out of place to speak here of the tricks which have brought some measure of renown to certain animals.

  There have been “thinking” horses which could work out square roots, and a wonder-dog Rolf, an Airedale terrier, which went so far as to dictate its last will and testament to its mistress. All these “counting”, “talking” and “thinking” animals “speak” by knocking or barking sounds, whose meaning is laid down after the fashion of a morse code. At first sight, their performances are really astounding. You are invited to set the examination yourself and you are put opposite the horse, terrier or whatever animal it is. You ask, how
much is twice two; the terrier scrutinizes you intently and barks four times. In a horse, the feat seems still more prodigious for he does not even look at you. In dogs, who watch the examiner closely, it is obvious that their attention is concentrated upon the latter and not by any means on the problem itself. But the horse has no need to turn his eyes towards the examiner since, even in a direction in which the animal is not directly focusing, it can see, by indirect vision, the minutest movement. And it is you yourself who betray, involuntarily to the “thinking” animal, the right solution. Should one not know the right answer oneself, the poor animal would knock or bark on desperately, waiting in vain for the sign which would tell him to stop. As a rule, this sign is forthcoming, since few people are capable, even with the utmost self-control, of withholding an unconscious and involuntary signal. That it is the human being who finds the solution and communicates it was once proved by one of my colleagues in the case of a dachshund which had become quite famous and which belonged to an elderly spinster. The method was perfidious: it consisted in suggesting a wrong solution of all the problems not to the “counting” dog, but to his mistress. To this end, my friend made cards on one side of which a simple problem was printed in fat letters. The cards, however, unknown to the dog’s owner, were constructed of several layers of transparent paper on the last of which another problem was inscribed in such a manner as to be visible from behind, when the front side was presented to the animal. The unsuspecting lady, seeing, in looking-glass writing, what she imagined to be the problem to be solved, transmitted involuntarily to the dog a solution which did not correspond to that of the problem on the front of the card, and was intensely surprised when, for the first time in her experience, her pet continued to give wrong answers. Before ending the séance, my friend adopted different tactics and presented mistress and dog with a problem which, for a change, the dog could answer and the lady could not: he put before the animal a rag impregnated with the smell of a bitch in season. The dog grew excited, wagged his tail and whined—he knew what he was smelling and a really knowledgeable dog owner might have known, too, from observing his behaviour. Not so the old lady. When the dog was asked what the rag smelled of, he promptly morsed her answer: “Cheese”!