The chief handed him a bunch of grapes, and motioned him to take a seat on the hide; but the boy would not sit down, and said in Spanish: "You are going to have the bull-and-bear fight to-night, Captain Joe?"
"Yes," replied the Indian, in the same language. "You come?"
"No," said Don Antonio, "it's too cruel; it isn't right; it hurts the bear."
The chief looked amazed at first, then laughed, translating the boy's remark for the benefit of the squaws, who joined in the merriment.
"There will be no fight to-night," said Don Antonio, with a great deal of dignity.
"Why no?" asked the Indian.
"Because," said the boy, swinging into his saddle, "there will be no moon."
"Very big moon to-night," said the Indian, "best moon of all the month."
"Captain Joe," said the boy, very seriously, "did you ever see the dragon that chases the moon?"
"I hear my father speak of him," replied the Indian.
"Well, he is going to catch the moon to-night," said the boy, as he touched his spurs to his horse and rode away.
The sun sank over the hills, and the old buildings of mud and adobe became radiant in its parting light; groups of Indians and soldiers were moving in the direction of the inclosure, many dragging hides to sit on; and finally, when the moon began to rise, the great arena was crowded with dusky forms eager for the fray.
Amid shouts and cries a large and ugly bull was pushed from a corral into the ring, then a big box was hauled in and the end pulled up, releasing a grizzly bear which had been roped in the mountains the week before and dragged down to the mission. Excitement was aroused to the highest pitch, and a hush had fallen over the assemblage, when there rose a shrill voice, crying loudly in Spanish, so that all heard: "The dragon has caught the moon;" then louder—like an echo: "The dragon is swallowing the moon."
Every eye was raised to the heavens, and, to the surprise of the assembled natives, there was a decided notch in the face of the full moon. As they looked, it grew larger and larger, while a strange, mysterious light began to steal over everything. At first there was a low murmur from the natives; then, as the spot grew larger and the moon was evidently disappearing before their eyes, the great audience rose, and shouts and cries rent the air. The men who had brought hides held them aloft and beat them with clubs, shrieking an accompaniment, while the women joined in a weird moaning. Men upon the ground threw sand at the moon, pelted it with stones, hoping in this way to drive the dragon away; but as the moon grew smaller and smaller, they were seized with a panic and ran out of the quadrangle, and hid themselves in their tule huts or the deep brush on the river side, where they remained until the moon appeared again, when they slowly ventured out and gathered about the roasted ox, wondering that the world had not come to an end, as the dragon had surely swallowed the moon.
"There is only one man in the post," said the captain to a group of officers, "who is sufficiently well posted in astronomy to know that a total eclipse of the moon was due to-night; and Captain Joe tells me that Don Antonio is a remarkable 'medicine,' as he foretold the appearance of the dragon."
"There is a curious feature about this legend," said the major-domo, who was sitting in the corner with Don Antonio standing by him, and who, laughing, seemed desirous of changing the subject. "The Chinese have a similar belief. They too have a dragon which is ever chasing the moon, sometimes catching it; in fact, the eclipse is their dragon. Now, if these Indians have the same belief, and try to frighten the dragon away in the same manner, does it not suggest that the Indians of the Pacific coast may have been descended from a remote Chinese ancestor who was blown away from China and wrecked with his junk on these shores ages ago?"
"What say you, Don Antonio?" said the captain. "Surely you have an opinion on this subject."
"I don't know anything about that," replied the boy; "but I do know the Indians made so much noise with their hides and sand-throwing that they stampeded the bear and bull, and they cannot be found!"
HOW ANIMALS TALK.
MY interest in the language of the lower animals was perhaps first aroused by a vocal appeal which a fish made to me in the Gulf of Mexico. I was fishing on the edge of a coral reef, where the rich olive of the coral heads gradually gave way to the blue waters of the channel, when I hooked and brought up a fish about eight inches in length, of an old-gold color, marked with scarlet lines and spots—a most attractive little creature. As I took it in my hand to remove the hook, I was attracted by its eyes, which were lustrous, with yellow and red tints, but especially as they seemed to roll up at me in a supplicating way. Then it began to talk to me, after the fashion of its kind, uttering at first a plaintive grunt, then a series of croaks which seemed to rise in inflection, then die gradually away. Then it would croak, almost bark, until finally I tossed the fish back into its native element, fairly conquered by the sounds it uttered. The little fish was a member of a large family (Haemulon) in that vicinity, nearly all of whom were grunters or croakers, and remarkable for the variety of sounds they produced.
A large number of fishes utter sounds. I have heard the common dogfish utter a curious sound that has been construed into a bark. The eel makes a low, croaking noise, said to be musical. The little sea horse utters a single note so far as known, while the gizzard shad is a "talker;" but none of these equal the little Haemulon that grunted and barked its way to liberty in the Mexican Gulf.
The sounds made by fishes are uttered in various ways, and many, I think, are involuntary. Some are produced by the action of the pneumatic duct and swimming bladder, while in other fishes the lips and intermaxillary bones have something to do with the sound. In certain fishes, as Zeus and Trigla, there is a low, murmuring sound produced by the swimming bladder, which has an opening and closing diaphragm. The catfish utters sounds by forcing air from the swimming bladder into the esophagus. In the sea horse referred to, the note is produced by the vibrations of small voluntary muscles.
The loudest sound-producer is the drumfish, which in some way utters drumming notes that have startled seafarers off the New Jersey coast. In China, on one occasion, a sound was heard by the officers and crew of an English man-of-war, coming up from the water like the twanging of a great harp, and was referred by some to a school of fishes and by others to certain shells.
I believe nearly all animals have a language or method of communication, though not always vocal. The sensory organs of fishes are well developed, and they can track one another by scent when out of sight. In the deep sea the phosphorescent lights of fishes are signals which may have some significance in communication. Some fishes have two or more lights of different colors, like a steamboat or ship. This is true of the Malacosteus niger. On one side it has a golden light; on the other the light is green.
The ordinary domestic fowl affords the most positive evidence of the possession of a language that is understood. There are many decidedly different calls, which, if taken down in a phonograph and repeated in a henhouse or yard, would produce interesting results. I need but mention a few calls to illustrate the range of the sounds in the domestic fowl. On a warm day, when hens are released from their coop, when their minds are undisturbed and all nature looks bright and inviting, they sing as they feed—a continuous repetition of "kerr-kerr-kerr," with various modulations. The rooster never utters it, nor the mother hen. It is the song of the happy-go-lucky hen.
Now let a hawk appear in the sky. An entirely different sound is heard. The hen stops, stretches her head upward, and, with the cock, utters a decided note of warning in a high falsetto "K-a-r-r-r-r-e!" And if the enemy still comes on, it is repeated, and every bird in the vicinity lowers its head and runs to cover. The sound says in the hen language: "An enemy is coming! Run!" And run they do, the "k-a-r-r-r-r-e" being discontinued only when all danger is past. Note the joyous call of the hen that has laid an egg. "Cut-cut ca-da-cut!" comes oft repeated from the henhouse, and other envious hens are informed beyond any question or mistake that Mrs. Gallus has laid an egg.
Now, when these eggs are hatched we have other and maternal notes. There is a deep, monotonous "cluck-cluck!" That is a warning to others and a gentle admonition to the chicks to remain near, but it is not a call. Note the difference when the mother or the proud cock finds a worm. The cock appears to be greatly excited, and he pretends to peck at it, making the guileless hens believe that he is about to devour the bonne bouche himself; all the time he is saying "Cut, cut, cut"—"Come, come, come"—rapidly, which causes the hens to run pell-mell in his direction, to find, in many instances, nothing, it being merely a device to call the flock away from some rival. But in the case of the mother the little ones always find some tidbit which she has discovered.
I will not attempt to reproduce the baby talk of the old hen to her chicks, but it exists in great variety, and is suggestive of tenderness, affection, and solicitude. When the hen has her brood beneath her ample folds she often utters a sound like "C-r-a-w-z-z-e," of half warning and contentment. And when an intruder enters the coop after dark she utters a high, prolonged whistling note like "W-h-o-o-e," softly repeated, indicative of wonder and slight alarm. If now a fox, coyote, or other enemy seize her, how quickly comes an entirely different cry—a scream of terror and alarm, "C-r-a-i-a-i-o-u," repeated again and again, and so full of meaning that the owner, some distance away, reaches for his shotgun and answers the signal of distress.
Among the song birds there are many such notes. Especially have I noticed it in a family of mocking birds that have nested in a peach tree not far from my window. The cry of alarm given by the mother when I took out one of the nestlings was a loud sucking, clucking note, that brought not only the mate, but an entire flock of blackbirds that frequented an adjoining orange grove, all gathering around me, uttering loud and discordant notes, menacing me from every point of vantage, and suggesting that the mocking bird dialect of the peach tree was understood by the blackbirds of the orange grove tribe.
Undoubtedly all birds have a more or less well-defined means of communication, though differing. A pelican hissed in asthmatic tones at me. My owls had a limited and hissing vocabulary, but looked volumes through their expressive eyes. The humming bird has a dainty song and delicate notes which I hear among the nasturtiums—"Chit, chit, chit," and other notes; and the purring love note of the pigeon is well known.