1 82 STUDIES IN LIFE AND SENSE 



open window of the adjoining house. It is my hostess amusing her- 

 self with musical snatches, reveries, and reminiscences. Now it is a 

 fragment of the last German waltz, musical, swinging, and so rhyth- 

 mical that feet insensibly and automatically begin to describe 

 imaginary circles, and the mind to conjure up visions of smooth 

 waxed -floors, and gas-lights and whirling couples, keeping pace to the 

 melody. Now, the waltz-phase has passed, and she strikes a sweeter 

 chord. I should know these notes. Of course the Lieder ohne 

 Worte, most poetical of strains, wherein one can find sympathy and 

 consolation for many troubles of body and mind, and from which one 

 can weave words and phrases to suit the impassioned chords and the 

 fleeting moods of the listener's mind. Just so. Mendelssohn has 

 inspired me with a title at least. I shall shake off the languor of 

 laziness and hie me indoors ; and whilst my good hostess is pleasing 

 herself and unconsciously delighting me with Felix the divine, I will 

 indite me a little article on the " Songs without Words " one may 

 hear in halls with leafy canopies, and in cathedrals whose aisles are 

 flanked by massive columns of gnarled stems, and whose roofs are 

 formed by the blue vault of heaven itself. 



In which classes of animals do we find sound to be produced in 

 lower life ? Such is a query not inappropriate in view of the nature 

 and extent of the fields over which our inquiries may travel. Our 

 starting-point will be found in the insects, and possibly, also, amongst 

 the nearly related but zoologically distinct spiders. Upwards we may 

 travel through the molluscs, or shellfish, without meeting with any 

 distinct example of sound-producing organs. Arriving at the lowest 

 confines of man's own sub-kingdom, we pass to the fishes and find 

 therein some few but notable examples of sound-producing animals. 

 The frogs, with a not unmusical croak a sound expressive enough 

 in ears which are open to hear come next in order ; and amongst 

 the reptiles which succeed the frogs we find voice, it is true, but of 

 indefinite type. Sweetest of all " songs without words " are those of 

 the birds ; and it is both curious and important to remark on the 

 structural nearness of the birds to the reptiles these two classes 

 being related in a most intimate fashion in many points of structure 

 and development. Above the birds come the quadrupeds, with 

 voices high and low, for the most part unmusical and often harsh, 

 but possessing as their crowning glory the songs with words of 

 man. Thus we discover a wide field before us, in the investigation 

 of the voices which speak in the unknown tongues of lower life. 

 Let us see if the interest of the subject may be found to equal its 

 extent. 



There is little need, I apprehend, to preface our discussion with 

 a discourse on elementary zoology, by way of informing readers that 

 only in the vertebrates or highest group of animals do we meet with 



