VOCAL ORGANS. 239 



or, by a suitable disposition of the external opening-, 

 it will nearly suppress them. But till natural philo- 

 sophy shall have determined with precision the iiv 

 fluence of the tube in reeded instruments, we can, at 

 best, only form probable conjectures upon this sub- 

 ject. Through its various peculiarities, however, of 

 form, position, elasticity, and movement, the tongue 

 in the nightingale, like the valve or lid (epiglottis) 

 of the orifice in man, seems to constitute an essential 

 part of thf apparatus of the voice, independently of 

 its office of contracting the vocal tube. M. Grenie, 

 who has invented so many ingenious and useful 

 modifications of reeded instruments, at one period 

 of his investigations, attempted to augment the in- 

 tensity of the sound without changing the reed. 

 To effect that object, he was obliged to augment, 

 gradually, the intensity of the current of air ; but this, 

 though it rendered the sounds stronger, had like- 

 wise the effect of elevating the note. The only 

 remedy for this inconvenience, which M. Grenie 

 could discover, was to place obliquely, in the tube, 

 immediately above the reed, a flexible elastic 

 tongue, resembling very much the similar apparatus 

 in animals. 



Among the call-notes of birds, that of the bittern 

 (Ardea stellaris), has excited attention from the ear- 

 liest times, and various attempts have been made 

 to account for its formation. The sound itself has 

 been likened to the lowing of a bull, and hence the 

 bird was called the bull (Botaurus), by old writers ; 

 but Willughby, from his own observation, asserts 

 that the sound is "nothing like to lowing," &c., 

 but " to say the truth, seems much more to imitate 

 the braying of an ass than the bellowing of a bull*." 

 Goldsmith's description, also, from his own obser- 

 vation, seems more minute, though it may possibly 

 * Ornith. by Ray, p. 283. 



