THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC. 5 



season I have not observed, but it certainly happens out of the 

 pairing season. I have several times heard blackbirds singing 

 alternately in June. But the most conspicuous instance is sup- 

 plied by the redbreasts. These habitually sing against one another 

 during the autumn months : reply and rejoinder being commonly 

 continued for five minutes at a time. 



Even did the evidence support the popular view adopted by 

 Mr. Darwin, that the singing of birds is a kind of courtship even 

 were there good proof, instead of much disproof, that a bird's song 

 is a developed form of the sexual sounds made by the male to 

 charm the female ; the conclusion would, I think, do little toward 

 justifying the belief that human music has had a kindred origin. 

 For, in the first place, the bird-type in general, developed as it is 

 out of the reptilian type, is very remotely related to that type of 

 the Vertebrata which ascends to Man as its highest exemplar ; and, 

 in the second place, song-birds belong, with but few exceptions, to 

 the single order of Insessores one order only, of the many orders 

 constituting the class. So that, if the Vertebrata at large be rep- 

 resented by a tree, of which Man is the topmost twig, then it is 

 at a considerable distance down the trunk that there diverges the 

 branch from which the bird-type is derived; and the group of 

 singing-birds forms but a terminal subdivision of this branch 

 lies far out of the ascending line which ends in Man. To give ap- 

 preciable support to Mr. Darwin's view, we ought to find vocal 

 manifestations of the amatory feeling becoming more pronounced 

 as we ascend along that particular line of inferior Vertebrata 

 out of which Man has arisen. Just as we find other traits 

 which pre-figure human traits (instance arms and hands adapted 

 for grasping) becoming more marked as we approach Man; so 

 should we find, becoming more marked, this sexual use of the 

 voice, which is supposed to end in human song. But we do not 

 find this. The South American monkeys ("the Howlers," as they 

 are sometimes called), which, in chorus, make the woods resound 

 for hours together with their " dreadful concert," appear, according 

 to Rengger, to be prompted by no other desire than that of making 

 a noise. Mr. Darwin admits, too, that this is generally the case 

 with the gibbons : the only exception he is inclined to make being 

 in the case of Hylobates agilis, which, on the testimony of Mr. 

 Waterhouse, he says ascends and descends the scale by half-tones.* 

 This comparatively musical set of sounds, he thinks, may be used 



* It is far more probable that the ascents and descents made by this gibbon consisted 

 of indefinitely-slurred tones. To suppose that each was a series of definite semi-tones 

 strains belief to breaking point ; considering that among human beings the great majority, 

 even of those who have good ears, are unable to go up or down the chromatic scale with- 

 out being taught to do so. The achievement is one requiring considerable practice ; and 

 that such an achievement should be spontaneous on the part of a monkey is incredible. 



