THE SYMPHONY OF VOICES 



one felt at last that one was oneself an instrument of Nature and 

 her musicians. 



Among the widespread legends relating to the tropics is the oft- 

 repeated statement that the tropical birds are beautiful to look at, 

 but do not sing. But I had not been long in Ceylon before I had 

 convinced myself that the Indian birds have the most glorious voices, 

 and that their song is no whit inferior to that of the European birds 

 in beauty and variety. 



As regards Brazil, we have already seen that this country is part 

 of a continent which must have been early cut off from the northern 

 mainland, at a time when the final ramifications of the various 

 orders of animals had not yet emerged. But the song-birds represent 

 such a ramification ; they are in a sense at the very summit of avian 

 evolution, and many developments that are merely foreshadowed 

 in other orders have first attained perfection in them. The birds, 

 as flying animals, are adapted to the use of audible signals of recog- 

 nition ; many of them, too, are gregarious, and naturally call to one 

 another, and so, in order to produce the requisite vocal modulations, 

 a special apparatus has been evolved, which is found only in the 

 birds. This apparatus is the inferior larnyx, or syrinx. Like other 

 animals, including man, the birds have a larynx at the upper end 

 of the windpipe, but they have also a second larynx where the 

 windpipe divides into the two branches, or bronchi, which lead to 

 the lungs. This inferior larynx or syrinx is the actual singing-organ, 

 and the many small muscles which lie around it have made it a 

 musical instrument of the highest quality. The families of birds in 

 which the musculature of the larynx does not assume such a highly- 

 evolved and symmetrical form are known as the Clamatores, the 

 screamers. 



Since India has always formed part of the northern mainland, 

 that country could share in the general evolution of the song-birds, 

 and the birds had only to adapt their song to the tropical landscape. 

 In Brazil, on the other hand, the singing-birds did not evolve in 

 touch with the true centre of development of this order. In Brazil, 

 accordingly, they do not play the same part as in Europe and Asia, 

 but the Clamatores are more strongly characteristic of the avian 

 world of South America. 



Nevertheless, we find in Brazil a few singing-birds which in bodily 

 structure, as in the quality of their voices, correspond completely 



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