over, resignation follows, and our man decides to wait patiently for the end.  A period of half lethargy was easily represented by the slowness and weakness of the man’s voice while living up to this decision; but when he comes out of this sleepy condition and hears the fountain again, he is possessed with fear; he cannot understand the flood he is pouring out—­he dares not move—­he believes he is lost.  Gradually the fumes of the liquor pass away, and, his mistake being recognized, the drunkard is taken with a laughing and a gayety which are indicated by the same oath repeated in tones corresponding with the satisfaction he is then enjoying.  This making the series of impressions a man passes through comprehensible by a single word, varied in pronunciation and utterance, is very like the language of animals, which is always the same, and the significance of which is given by variety of intonations corresponding with sensational conditions.

The mewing of the cat is always the same; but what a number of mental conditions it expresses!  I had a kitten whose gambols and liveliness entertained me greatly.  I understood well, when it came up to me mewing, what the sound meant; sometimes the kitten wanted to come up and sleep in my lap; at other times it was asking me to play with it.  When, at my meals, it jumped on my knees, turned round, looked at me, and spoke in a coaxing and flattering way, it was asking for something to eat.  When its mother came up with a mouse in her jaws, her muffled and low-toned mew informed the little one from a distance, and caused it to spring and run up to the game that was brought to it.  The cry is always the same, but varied in the strength of the inflections and in its protraction, so as to represent the various states of mind with which my young animal is moved—­just as it was with the drunken man in the mimicry scene.  These facts are probably well known to all observers of animals.

We have seen that this tonality of the watch dog’s cries is competent to indicate that a person is coming to the house.  We find similar cries of warning uttered by birds.  When I was a professor in the faculty of Lille, I frequently visited the well known aged Professor of Physics, M. Delezenne.  He had a working room at the end of a garden, in which a laughing mew wandered.  From the time that any one came in till he went out, this bird made the vocal explosions to which it owes its name; and the good professor was certain, without ever being mistaken, that somebody was coming to his laboratory.  He was notified.  My Jaco in Paris has a warble that answers the ringing of the bell.  If we have not heard the bell, we are notified by Jaco of its ringing, and, going to the door, find some one there.  I have been told of a parrot belonging to the steward of a lyceum which had heard the words “Come in,” when any one rang the bell.  He never failed to cry, “Come in,” when the bell moved, and the visitor was embarrassed at seeing nobody after having been invited to open the door.