282 INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC 



by means of drums and bow and string apparatus 

 on the exterior of their scaly segmented body- 

 casings, but partly from the interior of their bodies. 



The two forms of music — vocal and instrumental 

 — are one and the same in their origin, born simul- 

 taneously of the same impulse, consequently Herbert 

 Spencer is wrong in saying that all music is vocal in 

 its origin. In both, it is sound produced voluntarily 

 for its own sake — a sound or sounds originally pro- 

 duced for another purpose (sounds with special 

 functions), eventually produced in a modified form 

 solely for pleasure. 



Thus, in instrumental music, it may be a call, like 

 that of the woodpecker when he drums on a tree; 

 or of the Anobium beetle, called death-watch, when 

 he makes his measured strokes on wood; or of the 

 rabbit thumping, a sound which, in that creature, has 

 kept its original purpose and is used for no other. 

 But in the vizcacha, the large burrowing rodent of 

 the Argentine plains, the thumping has developed 

 into a performance practised for its own sake — a 

 sort of eccentric dance with an accompaniment of 

 rapid thumpings or drummings on the hard earth 

 with the powerful hind feet. 



Such sounds, then, produced solely for their own 

 sake, for pleasure, are the beginnings of instrumental 

 music in both men and the lower animals. In mammals 

 and birds such sounds are as a rule accompanied by 

 vocal sounds, but not in the insects that have their 

 tracheae in their sides. On the other hand they have 

 a horny case or covering, in segments, with more 



