LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE 197

The climax of absurdity, however, is attained in an anec-

dote of a talking bird,* which our esteem and regard for the

late Professor Romanes do not allow us here to more than

refer to.

The vast difference between the emotional gesture-

language of animals and the intellectual gestures of men is

apparent, while those of infants show that mental con-

ceptions may precede verbal expressions. Colonel Malleryt

has remarked that " the wishes and emotions of very young

children are conveyed in a small number of sounds, but

in a great variety of gestures and facial expressions. A

child's gestures are intelligent long in advance of speech,

although very early and persistent attempts are made to

give it instruction in the latter, but none in the former, from

the time when it begins risu cognoscere matrem. It learns

words only as they are taught, and learns them through the

medium of signs which are not expressly taught Long

after familiarity with speech, it consults the gestures and

facial expressions of its parents and nurses, as if seeking thus

to translate and explain words. . . . The insane understand

and obey gestures when they have no knowledge whatever

of words. . . . Sufferers from aphasia continue to use

appropriate gestures."

The same authority also tells us that Indians from the

West, who have been brought into the Eastern States, " have

often succeeded in holding intercourse, by means of their

invention and application of principles . in what may be

called the voiceless mother utterance, with white deaf-mutes,

who surely have no semiotic code more nearly connected

with that attributed to the Indians than is derived from their

common humanity. They showed the greatest pleasure in

* See op. cit., p. 190.

t In his memoir on "Sign-language among the North American Indians,"

First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Washington, 1881.

The climax of absurdity, however, is attained in an anec-

dote of a talking bird,* which our esteem and regard for the

late Professor Romanes do not allow us here to more than

refer to.

The vast difference between the emotional gesture-

language of animals and the intellectual gestures of men is

apparent, while those of infants show that mental con-

ceptions may precede verbal expressions. Colonel Malleryt

has remarked that " the wishes and emotions of very young

children are conveyed in a small number of sounds, but

in a great variety of gestures and facial expressions. A

child's gestures are intelligent long in advance of speech,

although very early and persistent attempts are made to

give it instruction in the latter, but none in the former, from

the time when it begins risu cognoscere matrem. It learns

words only as they are taught, and learns them through the

medium of signs which are not expressly taught Long

after familiarity with speech, it consults the gestures and

facial expressions of its parents and nurses, as if seeking thus

to translate and explain words. . . . The insane understand

and obey gestures when they have no knowledge whatever

of words. . . . Sufferers from aphasia continue to use

appropriate gestures."

The same authority also tells us that Indians from the

West, who have been brought into the Eastern States, " have

often succeeded in holding intercourse, by means of their

invention and application of principles . in what may be

called the voiceless mother utterance, with white deaf-mutes,

who surely have no semiotic code more nearly connected

with that attributed to the Indians than is derived from their

common humanity. They showed the greatest pleasure in

* See op. cit., p. 190.

t In his memoir on "Sign-language among the North American Indians,"

First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Washington, 1881.