THE MUSICAL SENSE IN ANIMALS AND MEN 355 



opportunity of supplying himself pass. It is not for nothing that 

 the fox watches night and day intent to take notice of the lightest 

 movement in the air ; or that the hare is a proverbially timid 

 beast, for the existence of his species depends upon his being on 

 the alert. We can thus understand to a certain extent why the 

 rabbit has 7,800 auditory cells in his organ ; a number that rep- 

 resents a wonderfully delicate refinement in his hearing, even 

 if we do not suppose each of these 7,800 cells to correspond with 

 a different tone, as, if we regard each cross-shaped group of four 

 cells as representing a single tone, this would give an exceedingly 

 large number — about two thousand — of tone-perceptions. We may 

 realize how delicate must be the hearing that appreciates even a 

 thousand tones when we recollect that our concert-piano scales 

 give only eighty-seven tones. Even if we take a scale of greater 

 compass, as of a hundred tones at intervals of a semitone, our 

 rabbit will have capacity to distinguish nineteen intertones in 

 each half-tone interval. We, ourselves, if we exercise our full 

 power of hearing, could distinguish some thirty intertones be- 

 tween the tones A and Ej, of our scale — a few more than the 

 difference in the number of vibrations corresponding with those 

 notes (A=440, Bj,=467"5). 



To make this highly developed organization of the ear of real 

 benefit to the animal, the parts of the brain corresponding with 

 the auditory nerves must be constituted with like delicacy. So 

 also must those parts which serve for the remembrance of sensa- 

 tions. For, without memory and the power to profit by the les- 

 sons of experience, those powers would be of little use to the 

 animal. 



It is only in a few instances that we can ascertain with any 

 degree of sufficiency how far an animal is capable of really com- 

 prehending our music. The capacity often appears to be consider- 

 able ; for it is well known that cavalry-horses frequently learn to 

 recognize the signals given by the trumpeters as well as their 

 riders do, and to make the motions answering to them before they 

 are directed to do so. We have, furthermore, in many birds, which 

 are far below the mammals we have named in mental capacity, 

 good evidence that our music can be heard and comprehended by 

 beings whose hearing apparatus has not been adapted to those 

 ends. I refer especially to birds which have no or only very sim- 

 ple songs of their own, and are yet able to imitate both the more 

 varied songs of other birds and human melodies. This is con- 

 spicuously the case with some of the parrots, which can learn to 

 repeat short melodies well and distinctly. They also possess the 

 proper organs for hearing music, although they do not themselves 

 make it. Thus our proposition seems well founded that, as man 

 possessed musical hearing organs before he made music, those 



