258 SONG, FOEM, SCENT AND COLOUR 



iu the now acknowledged fact that sound and colour run in parallel lines through creation, 

 and closely correspond with each other in their several relations. Some of my readers 

 may be aware that a chromatic piano has been made by some ingenious inventor, although 

 at present the popular mind has not been sufficiently interested in this abstruse suliject, 

 to lla^■e bestowed upon so admirable an invention the notice which it deseiwes. 



It is also well known that certain somids are suggestive of certain colours, and n're 

 versd, as has been forcibly exemplified in the well-known experiment upon a congenitally 

 blind person, whose power of lision was developed by means of a surgical operation, and 

 who said that the colour scarlet reminded him of a trumpet blast. It may be, tlierefore, 

 that on the one side the bird which is possessed of a good voice and a plain dress, pours 

 forth his love and manifests his sympathetic emotions in gushing strains, which are 

 addressed to the ears of his mate ; again, the bright-plumaged bird utters his voiceless 

 song by the vivid hues that flash from his glittering attire, the eye lieing the only medium 

 through which liis partner, whose ears are not attuned to melody, could realize the fulness 

 of his emotional utterance. The one showers his musical notes like vocal rainbows, and 

 the other scatters his scintillating coruscations of many-coloured light in fiercely flasliing 

 or softly blending tints of most living hues, and whether through sweet song or glittering 

 vesture, the creature utters the love and sympathy of its nature. 



At regularly recurrent intervals, an effluence of Divine Love is poured out upon all 

 organic nature, and finds its level and outburst in graceful form, in sweet sound, in 

 brilliant colouring or in odorous scent, and beyond and above all in these acts of maternal 

 and self-sacrificing love which permeate the entire universe, and are more tinged with 

 divinity than any of the preceding forms because more noiseless and less obtrusive. 



Even in flowers the same principle is manifested, for they only put forward their 

 fragrant perfume and gleaming corollas while their offspring is being developed, and 

 as soon as the seed is perfected they lose both scent and petals until the next season 

 of love. 



The female needs no song or glittering plumage for the expression of her love, for she 

 performs in loving acts the sympathies which her mate expresses in colour, form, or sound, 

 and while imparting the divine element of love to her callow young, she utters and 

 incarnates lier song of praise through the coming generations. These elements of the 

 being, which in the male bird are modified into glorious plumage or vocal melody, 

 are from her transmitted to her descendants, and pass away from her individual self, 

 to be universally and eternally reproduced and multiplied in the persons of the future 

 offspring. He sings the song, but she performs it, and manifests lier love in a melody 

 more fruitful than that of her mate, because so many beings are evolved from it. She 

 cherishes and nourishes, he protects and provides. 



The mother freely gives her whole being for the welfare of her young, and finds the 

 most exquisite debglit in utter abnegation of self. She often robs herself of her own 

 covering, tearing away her warmest feathers to make a soft nest for her young, taming the 

 ever restless Ijird-nature to absolute quietness, and chaining herself for successive weeks 

 to the one single spot on which all her hopes are concentrated. Her very life itself is 

 valueless in her eye.s as long as she holds in lier charge the lives of her young ; and she 

 who would but a few weeks before have fled in terror from the meanest foe, now with her 

 feeble powers of offence boldly faces the hawk, the stoat, tlie snake, and even man 

 himself, and her fear being conquered by her love, boldly attacks with dauntless heart 

 the Avould-l)e destroyer of her domestic peace. 



"When by age or injury the reproductive element cannot be carried out in the usual 

 manner, it manifests itself in outward form, and tlius we often see the aged hen assume 

 the warrior armature and plumage of Chanticleer hunself. And when the season of love 

 is over, and the young are launched upon the world, the female is released from her home 

 cares, shakes off the chains which have trammelled her so long, and exultingly disports 

 herself once more in the open fields and forests; tlie male lays aside his splendid raiiiieiit 

 and ceases his melodious song, needing no longer to cheer the spirit of his mate and 

 nestlings by his exertions, and even the very flowers doiT their raiment and (luciu-li 

 their frajrraiice until a fresh infusion of the love element shall so intensify and \i\irv 



