374 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



trumpet-tones of strife, the musical intonations of 

 mirth. They cannot hear the prattle of children's 

 voices, which sends such thrills along our nerves ; nor 

 can they hear the untiring eloquence of a vexed virago, 

 which also sends thrills, not of so pleasant a natm^e. 

 Deafer than the deafest adder will they remain, charm 

 we never so wisely. Equally insensible must they be 

 to music. Beethoven's melodious thunder, Handel's 

 choral might, Mozart's tender grace, Bellini's languor- 

 ous sweetness, are even more lost on them than on the 

 lymphatic dowagers in the grand tier, who chatter 

 audibly of guipure and the last drawing-room, while 

 Grisi's impassioned expression, and Mario's cantahile, 

 are entrancing the rest of the audience. The Mollusc 

 can only perceive noises. Sounds are by us separately 

 recognisable in their intensity, their pitch (or note), 

 and their quality. The Mollusc only recognises in- 

 tensity — loudness. A wave of sound agitates the 

 otolithes in his ear, and their agitation communicates 

 to the ganglion a sensation of sound, loud in proportion 

 to the agitation. 



Had we no other evidence, this would suffice to show 

 the error of the vulgar conception of hearing. Sound 

 is not produced by waves of air striking the drum, 

 these waves being thence transmitted along the audi- 

 tory nerve to the brain ; but the waves agitate the 

 sensory apparatus, which in its turn acts upon the Sen- 

 sational Centre. That is why sounds are heard witli pain- 

 ful distinctness when the sensory aj^paratus is affected 

 by other stimuli besides the pulsations of waves of air. 



