242 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. 



many well-attested instances of a delicate ear in 

 species by no means remarkable for vocal execution. 

 Madame Piozzi gives an account of a tame pigeon, 

 which answered by gesticulation to every note of a 

 harpsichord. As often as she began to play, the 

 pigeon hurried to the concert with every indication 

 of rapturous delight. A false note produced in the 

 bird evident tokens of displeasure, and, if frequently 

 repeated, it lost all temper and tore her hands.* 



A no less remarkable instance of the effect of 

 music on a pigeon is related by Lockman in his re- 

 flections upon operas, prefixed to his musical drama 

 of Rosalinda. Being at the house of a Cheshire 

 gentleman, whose daughter was a fine performer on 

 the harpsichord, he observed a pigeon, which, when- 

 ever the young lady played the song of " Speri si" 

 in Handell's opera of Admetus, would descend from 

 an adjacent dovecot to the room window where she 

 sat, and listen with every indication of pleasure till 

 the song was finished, when it uniformly returned 

 to the dovecot. 



M. Le Cat, holding the theory that the cochlea 

 or snail-shell of the ear is the organ which perceives 

 harmony and which is wanting in birds, yet admits 

 birds to be the most musical of all animals, and to 

 have an exquisite hearing, " because," he says, " their 

 heads are almost entirely sonorous like a bell, owing 

 to their not being involved in complicated muscles, 

 as are the heads of other animals. Hence must 

 they necessarily be agitated by the sounds which pre- 

 sent themselves. The labyrinth of their ear being 

 very sonorous, is sufficient for this end. The most 

 simple grot will echo back a musical air ; but if, to 

 this excellent disposition of hearing in birds, nature 

 had added the cochlea, they would have been much 

 more sensible of harmonious modulations. They 

 would have had a passion for harmony, as almost 



* Letters from France and Italy. 



