THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN VOICE 205 



at a distance from the party and there was nothing to direct their 

 attention to it. It was clear that it came from the throat of one 

 of the bullfrogs, the creature perhaps being frightened by the 

 presence of the snakes. I could not find from any of my naturalist 

 friends that such a wailing note was recognized as a sound these 

 creatures make, nor was there any account of it in the books I 

 searched. I tried to have the sound repeated, and for a long 

 time without success ; finally I heard it once again, not so clear 

 as in the first instance, but sufficiently so to make the observa- 

 tion certain; a curiously human sound which would any where be 

 taken for an infant's wail. Since then I have found two other 

 persons who have heard it from the same species. 



To me this observation is most interesting, because it shows 

 the primitive human cry as existing in a group which is sepa- 

 rated from us by thousands of species. The identity is due to 

 the early establishment of the relations between the lungs, the 

 vocal chords, and the emotions, which has in some forms re- 

 mained in the series to this day. In many groups the conditions 

 have been somewhat altered, but in nearly all the mammalian 

 forms the young, when frightened or in pain, will give out a cry 

 of the same general nature, one distinctly different from what 

 comes from the reptiles or the birds. The existence of this mode 

 of expression among the amphibia, while it is lacking in the 

 reptiles and the birds, serves in some measure to confirm the 

 other evidence to the effect that the mammalia were derived 

 from amphibian ancestors. 



Of all my lesser excursions, I most enjoyed those along the 

 seashore. Watching for the lowest run of tides, I delighted to 

 wander in the sea mud-flats, and especially among the boulders 

 which abound in the bottom, off the cliffs of boulder clay. The 

 richness of this life along the New England coast would not be 

 suspected by those who do not watch for the rare occasions 

 when the tides have the fullest swing and the wind is off-shore. 

 I was also given at such times to searching with a boat the spiles 

 of the bridges in the inlets about Boston, where the display 



