54 THE DESCENT OF MAN. [Part L 



their song round." Nestlings which have learned the song 

 of a distinct species, as with the canary-birds educated in 

 the Tyrol, teach and transmit their new song to their off- 

 spring. TJie slight natural differences of song in the same 

 species inhabiting different districts may be appositely 

 compared, as Barrington remarks, "to provincial dia- 

 lects ; " and the songs of allied though distinct species 

 may be compared with the languages of distinct races of 

 man. I have given the foregoing details to show that an 

 instinctive tendency to acquire an art is not a peculiarity 

 confined to man. 



With respect to the origin of articulate language, 

 after having read on the one side the highly-interesting 

 works of Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood, the Rev. F. Farrar,. 

 and Prof. Schleicher, 34 and the celebrated lectures of Prof. 

 Max Milller on the other side, I cannot doubt that lan- 

 guage owes its origin to the imitation and modification, 

 aided by signs and gestures, of various natural sounds, 

 the voices of other animals, and man's own instinctive 

 cries. When we treat of sexual selection we shall see 

 that primeval man, or rather some early progenitor of 

 man, probably used his voice largely, as does one of the 

 gibbon-apes at the present day, in producing true musical 

 cadences, that is in singing; we may conclude frdm a 

 widely-spread analogy that this power would have been 

 especially exerted during the courtship of the sexes, serv- 

 ing to express various emotions, as love, jealousy, triumph, 

 and serving as a challenge to their rivals. The imitation 

 by articulate sounds of musical cries might have given 



84 ' On the Origin of Language,' by H. "Wedgwood, 1866. • Chapters 

 on Language,' by the Rev. F. W. Farrar, 1865. These works -are most 

 interesting. See also ' De la Phys. et de Parole,' par Albert Lemoine, 

 1855, p. 190. The work on this subject, by the late Prof. Aug. Schlei- 

 cher, has been translated by Dr. Bikkers into English, under the title of 

 'Darwinism tested by the Science of Language,' 1869. 



