VOCAL ORGANS. 237 



does not differ from other birds. We therefore con- 

 clude that all the power and variety of its notes 

 are produced from innumerable fibres by which the 

 vocal chord (glottis) is either tightened or relaxed, 

 projected forwards or drawn inwards, and bent in 

 every direction, the tongue performing" the office of 

 a bow (plectrum) in eliciting the several notes. I 

 further infer that those guttural warblings called 

 trills, which professional singers make in the throat, 

 are not formed by the tongue, but immediately by 

 the vocal chords, and that this trilling is produced 

 solely by the exspiration of air striking on the vocal 

 chords*." 



From the inquiries of those of the more modern 

 physiologists whose works we have examined, it does 

 not appear that they have paid sufficient attention to 

 the influence of the tongue in modifying the sound of 

 the voice, though it will appear from some of the facts 

 which we shall presently state, that this influence is 

 probably considerable, even if we should not go so 

 far as Kircher, in representing it as the bow or 

 quill by which at least in the nightingale the sound is 

 produced. Aristotle had observed the shortness of the 

 nightingale's tongue, which he says "wants the tip f;" 

 and Pliny remarks that "in common with the black- 

 cap (Atricapilla) it has not the slender tip possessed 

 by other birds J." F. Sanctius says, "I can positively 

 aver, that the nightingale has no tongue, unless my 

 eyes deceive me." Aldrovand, on quoting the 

 above passage, remarks, " A few days since, one of 

 my friends brought me a nightingale in a cage, and 

 when we had taken it out, we could hardly observe 

 the smallest vestige of a tongue ; which circumstance 

 excited in me considerable wonder, that the little bird 



* Kircher, Musurgia, lib. i. 



f Hist. Anim. ix. 15. t Hist. Nat. x. 29. 



Coramen. in Al. Erab. 701. 



