52 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. 



Without the cochlea these animals are provided with, 

 one would by no means discover in them this sensi- 

 bility for harmony. We should rather find them, in 

 this respect, as stupid as fish, which are destitute of 

 the cochlea, as well as birds ; but without the advan- 

 tages which birds have of a head sufficiently disen- 

 gaged, sufficiently sonorous, to supply this defect*." 

 For the sake of illustration we may remark, that 

 many other animals, besides birds, are observed to 

 be singularly affected with certain sounds. Amongst 

 these the elephant is not a little remarkable, though 

 Sir Everard Home is disposed to think it does not 

 possess a musical ear. Suetonius, for example, tells 

 us, that the Emperor Domitian had a troop of ele- 

 phants disciplined to dance to the sound of music, and 

 that one of them who had been beaten for not having 

 his lesson perfect, was observed, the night after- 

 wards, practising by himself in a meadow f. Out- 

 rageous bulls have likewise, in several instances, been 

 calmed into gentleness by music. Of this musical 

 feeling in oxen Dr. Southey mentions a very singular 

 instance. " The carts," he says, " of Corunna make 

 so loud and disagreeable a creaking with their wheels 

 for want of oil, that the governor once issued an 

 order to have them greased ; but it was revoked on 

 the petition of the carters, who stated that the oxen 

 liked the sound, and would not draw without its 

 music J." Even fish, upon better authority than the 

 old story of Amphion and the dolphin, are said to 

 have shown signs of being affected by music ; and 

 seals, we are told, have crowded to hear a violin . 

 " Seals," says Valerius Flaccus, " delight in song||," 

 which Sir Walter Scott has rendered, 



* Le Cat, on the Senses, Eng. Trans. 



f Hist. Cses. xii. See also Menageries, ii. 70-1. 



I Letters from Spain. Laing's Voyage to Spitzbergen, 



II Gaudebant carmine Phocee. 



