She

man entered the room, she shouted to him, "You've been scalded," and
then, turning to her friends would cry out, "He's been scalded!"
could cry, "Hip, hip, hurrah! three cheers for the queen!" could sing and
dance to the tune of "Polly, put the kettle on, we'll all have tea ;
would ask very peremptorily for her meals," Thomas, fetch my dinner
Poll's hungry!"

and

I never She had one singular trait: she caught everybody's laugh. from the noticed the peculiarity of laughs in my family until "Poll" began to simulate them. From the feminine giggle to the masculine guffaw boisterous laugh of the children to the titter of the housemaid, catching the gamut of every member of our household, even to the suppressed hic"Poll" would cough of James the footman, whose good English breeding allowed only the slightest demonstration of any sentiment whateverWhen she once deliver by the hour a series of laughs, which, amusing enough at first, made her imitations at last an intolerable nuisance. began, nothing would stop her. Indeed, when attacked by a gout that ended her life, her very last breath shaped itself into a giggle.

Whether it is possible entirely to eradicate bad habits in parrots is
doubtful. Captain Simpson used to duck his paroquet in the sea every
The creature really connected an oath with a
time it swore an oath.
dowse in the water, and gave up swearing. One day, in a furious storm,
a man was washed overboard, and with great difficulty was recovered. As
soon as he was drawn on deck, "Polly" kept hopping around the circle,
́shaking her head from side to side, and saying gravely, "You've been
swearing! you've been swearing!"

A gentleman residing in Wilmington, Delaware, owns an Amazon
parrot. It possesses a fluency and variety of language rarely equalled by
As soon as her master returns from the office for
the African gray.
dinner, Polly begins to salute him in fondest expressions: "Papa, dear,
When the footman enters the
come and kiss your pretty green beauty! Come in, come in, papa, and
"Fetch my dinner,
give us a kiss, and a thousand more!"
room, she says to him, but never to anyone else,
-I'm hungry. Stupid fellow! I can't eat my head off!" To a
bachelor friend, who frequently spends several weeks at the house, Polly
has but one question, never put to any one else: "Oh, you gay deceiver,

James

why did you promise to marry me, and didn't?" To a gentleman, a near neighbor, whom she had once overheard saying, at the after-dinner table, “The bird's invaluable; five hundred dollars would not buy her, if I owned her — would it, Polly?" she always addresses the salute the moment he appears, "Five hundred dollars would not buy Polly, if you owned her! Five hundred dollars! Five hundred dollars! Why, the bird's invaluable !"

66

This Wilmington parrot certainly discriminates between the sexes and between conditions in life. To a well-dressed young gentleman the remark is, "What a get-up! What a swell you are!" To a young lady, on the contrary, fondling and kissing, she says, with great deference, "Is she not nice? so nice!" Whereas, to a clergyman, who is detected by his dress, she is exceedingly offensive, perpetually calling out, "Let us pray!" Glory be to God!" "Amen! She was once lost, stayed out over night, and grief and searches ruled the disconsolate household. At daybreak, however, a workman, going to his job, was hailed by Polly, from a pile of bricks, with the call, "Take me home! Take me home!" Whether the night-chilled bird did or did not attach meaning to the words, it is certain that the workman did, and that he made a good thing of bringing her home. I know of no gray parrot that has excelled this.

Condensed from "Talking Birds" by N. S. Dodge, in Johonnot's "Gimpses of the Animate World."*

EXERCISES

I. Oral: A conversation lesson in which each pupil shall tell any story he knows illustrating the use of language among animals.

II. Suggested Supplementary Work: A reading lesson, assigned for some future date, in which pupils may read short selections found by themselves, illustrating the language of bees, ants, wasps, birds, cats, dogs, horses, monkeys, elephants, or other animals.

* Reprinted by permission of the publishers, American Book Company.

CHAPTER II

FIRST WORDS

that

you

Who will tell today how you got on using only a gesture could beckon and language? [Discussion.] You say could shake your fists; you could show anger and likes and You could show desires, and affection for your dislikes. friends. I wish you now to tell something that you could not show by signs. [Discussion.] I see you all agree that most of the things learned at school could not be told by gesture language.

Will you think for a moment about the way in which colored lights are used to signal trains? Do you call this a language? You know that ships say many things by means of flags, and the weather bureau tells us by flags also what the weather will probably be. What is peculiar in all these systems of signals? You say that "they are all planned beforehand." You are right they all say a few things which are arranged beforehand. So these codes of signals are not languages.

On the whole, I judge that you do not care to return to hope, however, that you will now feel a the sign language. I hope, however, deeper interest in the natural sign language used by your baby brothers and sisters. Some babies who are slow in learning words, manage to say a very great deal by their pantomimes of signs.

Can you tell me whether the makers of a language would first make words for things seen, or for things not seen? You

all

say "for things seen." No one doubts this; and we are sure that actions that could be seen and objects that could be seen and felt and tasted would be given names first of all. In just this way, the babies in your homes today understand and first learn names for things they see and hear and taste and touch.

Do you know how a baby a little over a year old usually begins to talk? Will you watch some of these babies and write out their speeches, so that they can be looked at in class?

This is the way one baby-girl talked the day she was twenty months old: "Bottle-bottle-bottle; baby-baby-baby; book; lamb-lamb; book; toad-lamb; want-want; bottle; cow; dog; pat; lamb-lamb; Papa; Dick-Dick-Dick; lamb-lamb; bow-wow, bow-wow; little-little; lamb-lamb-lamb-lamb-lamblamb-lamb-lamb-lamb-lamb-lamb-lamb; bow-wow; Dick-Dick; write; boy-boy-boy; Dick; baby-baby-baby-baby; doll; eye-eye; want-want; warm-warm-warm-warm-warm-warmwarm; bow-wow; doll-doll; poor; lamb-lamb-lamb; DickDick; lamb-lamb; Dick-Dick; lamb-lamb; eye-eye; writewrite-write; pat-pat-pat-pat; water-water; pillow-pillow;

there-there-there-there-there; little-little-little-little-little ; pin-pin-pin-pin-pin-pin-pin-pin-pin; there; wash-wash

wash-wash-wash-wash-wash-wash-wash-wash-wash-washwash; baby-baby; hand-hand-hand; bye-bye-baby; pull-pull; away-away-away-away-away-away-away-away-away; wash

wash; away-away."
"'*

You will notice that all of this chatter was chiefly the repeating to herself of single words meaning some one thing. Not every child first talks in this way, but you will find that

*From "Psychological Studies No. 1," by Professor Harlow Gale.

most children do. Sometimes, they manage to say a good deal with single words alone. This is the way one baby talked with three words. He wanted the man John to give the dog Jack a biscuit. He said: "John! - Jack!-biscuit!" and John understood and Jack got the biscuit.

I hope you speak good English to your baby brothers and sisters. We should not forget that babies must learn over again all words that are first learned incorrectly. All baby-talk is pretty in babies, but if kept up by a whole family as is sometimes done, the poor baby has a slow and hard time in learning to talk well.

You do not very often need to make names now, for they are ready made for your use. In fact, there are so many at Here is a little poem

hand that it is often hard to choose one.

showing just this thing: