I seemed to know better which direction to choose when any doubt arose.

I began to feel in some degree what the birds meant in their songs, though I could not express it in words, any more than you can some landscapes.

At times, to my surprise, I found myself listening attentively, and as if it were no unusual thing with me, to a conversation between two squirrels or monkeys.
The subjects were not very interesting, except as associated with the individual life and necessities of the little creatures: where the best nuts were to be found in the neighbourhood, and who could crack them best, or who had most laid up for the winter, and such like; only they never said where the store was.

There was no great difference in kind between their talk and our ordinary human conversation.

Some of the creatures I never heard speak at all, and believe they never do so, except under the impulse of some great excitement.