HEARING. 51 



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 dove-cot 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 dove-cot. 



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 present 

 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 all animals 

 have for gormandizing; which is not the case. For 

 one ought to recollect that the musical quality pecu- 

 liar to birds, proceeds less from the delicacy and taste 

 of their ear, than from the disposition of their throat. 

 They, furthermore, in this particular, resemble musi- 

 cians, who give pleasure to others, without partaking 

 of any themselves. We hear a dog howl, we see him 

 weep, as it were, at a tune played upon a flute ; when, 

 on the contrary, this animal is all alive in the field 

 at the sound of a French horn. The horse takes fire 

 at the sound of a trumpet, in spite of the thick mus- 

 cular texture his auditory organ is encompassed with. 



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