The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal ObservationsHornaday, William T. (William Temple)
Science
The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations
Hornaday, William T. (William Temple)
Animal behavior
The shriek, or scream, can be heard half a mile, and at close
range it is literally ear-splitting. Usually it is accompanied by
violent stamping or pounding with the feet upon the floor. It may
signify rage, or nothing more than the joy of living, and of
having a place in which to yell. It is this cry that is uncannily
human-like in sound, and when heard for the first time it seems to
register anguish.
In its Bornean jungle home, the orang-utan is nearly as silent as
the grave. Never save once did I hear one utter a vocal sound.
That was a deep bass roar emitted by an old male that I disturbed
while he was sleeping on the comfortable nest of green branches
that he had built for himself.
Concerning the chimpanzee, the late Mr. Richard L. Garner
testified as follows:
"Not only does the chimpanzee often break the silence of the
forest when all other voices are hushed, but he frequently answers
the sounds of other animals, as if in mockery or defiance. ...
Although diurnal in habit, the chimpanzees often make the night
reverberate with the sounds of their terrific screaming, which I
have known them to continue at times for more than an hour, with
scarcely a moment's pause,--not one voice but many, and within
the area of a square mile or so I have distinguished as many as
seven alternating adult male voices.
"The gorilla is more silent and stoical than the chimpanzee, but
he is far from being mute. He appears to be devoid of all
risibility, but he is often very noisy. Although diurnal in habit,
he talks less frequently during the day than at night, but his
silence is a natural consequence of his stealth and cunning. There
are times, however, when he ignores all danger of betraying his
whereabouts or his movements, and gives vent to a deluge of
speech. At night his screams and shouts are terrific."
The gibbons (including the siamang) have tremendous voices, with
numerous variations, and they love to use them. My acquaintance
with them began in Borneo, in the dense and dark coastal forest
that there forms their home. I remember their cries as vividly as
if I had heard them again this morning. While feeding, or quietly
enjoying the morning sun, the gray gibbon (_Hylobates
concolor_) emits in leisurely succession a low staccato,
whistle-like cry, like "Hoot! Hoot! Hoot!" which one can easily
counterfeit by whistling. This is varied by another whistle cry of
three notes, thus: "Who-ee-hoo! Who-ee-hoo!" also to be duplicated
by whistling. In hunting for specimens of that gibbon, for
American museums, I could rarely locate a troop save by the tree-
top talk of its members.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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