Chap. IV. IN ANIMALS. 87 



admitted that the voice is affected through this law; but 

 the explanation appears to me too general and vague 

 to throw much light on the various differences, with the 

 exception of that of loudness, between ordinary speech 

 and emotional speech, or singing. 



This remark holds good, whether we believe that 

 the various qualities of the voice originated in speaking 

 under the excitement of strong feelings, and that these 

 qualities have subsequently been transferred to vocal 

 music; or whether we believe, as I maintain, that the 

 habit of uttering musical sounds was first developed, as 

 a means of courtship, in the early progenitors of man, 

 and thus became associated with the strongest emotions 

 of which they were capable, — namely, ardent love, rival- 

 ry and triumph. That animals utter musical notes is 

 familiar to every one, as we may daily hear in the sing- 

 ing of birds. It is a more remarkable fact that an ape, 

 one of the Gibbons, produces an exact octave of musical 

 sounds, ascending and descending the scale by half- 

 tones; so that this monkey "alone of brute mammals 

 may be said to sing." 3 From this fact, and from the 

 analogy of other animals, I have been led to infer that 

 the progenitors of man probably uttered musical tones, 

 before they had acquired the power of articulate speech; 

 and that consequently, when the voice is used under 

 any strong emotion, it tends to assiyne, through the prin- 

 ciple of association, a musical character. "We can plainly 

 perceive, with some of the lower animals, that the males 

 employ their voices to please the females, and that they 



3 ' The Descent of Man,' 1870, vol. ii. p. 332. The words 

 quoted are from Professor Owen. It has lately been shown 

 that some quadrupeds much lower in the scale than mon- 

 keys, namely Rodents, are able to produce correct musical 

 tones: see the account of a singing" Hesperomys, by the 

 Rev. S. Lockwood, in the ' American Naturalist,' vol. v. 

 December, 1871, p. 761. 



