IPMAT Indore 2026 · Verbal Ability · Question 6

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Who has not often observed two dogs, members of the same household, communicating with each other? Pug and Gyp were two animals that belonged to the family where I spent a summer vacation.

They thought much of each other when romping together in the yard, or in foraging the neighbouring woods and fields for rabbits and groundhogs. Never would they start out on an expedition for game without having previously laid their plans. It was interesting and amusing to watch them. They would bring their heads into close contiguity, remaining in this position for two or three minutes, when, by mutual consent, they would separate, look each other in the eyes, and then start off in different directions for the scene of their projected enterprise. Times out of number I have observed such behaviour and have always discovered that they meant something of the kind. There were no audible utterances, no visible gestures, yet there was an interchange of ideas. Through the medium of the eye were the thoughts conveyed. It was spirit speaking directly to spirit, conveying by a single glance of the eye thoughts which whole volumes would fail to express. Each species of animal has its own dialect. Yet there is another language, a sort of animal lingua franca, which is common to all. A cry of warning, no matter from what bird or animal it emanates, is understood by them all, as is well known to many a sportsman who has lost his only chance of a shot by reason of an impertinent crow, jay or magpie which has espied him, and has given its cry of alarm. There is not a bird of garden or orchard, or a fowl of the barnyard or door-side, that does not understand the peculiar cry of the rooster when a hawk is seen careering overhead or perched upon the summit of a nearby tree. With one accord they flee to their coverts, and there remain until the danger is past.

No more quarrelsome and pugnacious species of bird exists than the English sparrow. It appropriates every available locality for nesting purposes, and our native species are driven to the necessity of fighting for their rights, or of seeking quarters in the rural districts which these birds do not infect. Thus, it is that many a useful robin, bluebird or martin is driven from our midst. Many have witnessed encounters between these birds and the robins. The author once saw a contest between a pair of sparrows and a pair of robins for the possession of a certain tree that grew in his yard. Now the robin, single-handed, is more than a match for a sparrow.

In the engagement referred to, the robins were getting the better of the sparrows, which the latter were not slow in perceiving. Instantly the sparrows set up the wild, ear-piercing harangue for which they are peculiarly noted, when more than a score of friends from the immediate vicinity gathered to their assistance. But the war cry which they sounded not only summoned help to their standard, but it was equally understood by all the other birds of the neighbourhood, who flocked to the defence of their brethren against the alien. The battle waged warm and fiercely for some minutes, when the sparrows were forced to seek safety in retreat.