226 PHYSICAL CAUSES OF 



to frantic action and ending even in death, has resulted from 

 mere musical sound (' Percy Anecdotes '). 



Many experiments, some of them cruel in their nature, or 

 in the extent to which they were carried, dangerous, more- 

 over, in their results to human life, have been made to test 

 the effect on different animals of different kinds of notes or 

 sound. Thus Sir Everard Home found that bass created 

 in the lion a dangerous fury or ferocity, that has sometimes 

 been produced deliberately, inexcusably and maliciously also 

 in other menagerie animals (Pierquin). 



Music is, therefore, a frequent and powerful mental ex- 

 citant or irritant in many animals. But it is also sometimes, 

 on the other hand, a depressant, and the depression may be 

 of such a character that were it continued by a persistence 

 of the cause, it would be fatal occasionally in the dog 

 (Pierquin). A minor degree of this influence is its calmative 

 action, as when it is used in calming the rage of the rattle- 

 snake or other serpents. ' There are most clearly proved 

 instances in which enraged snakes ' have been lulled to quiet 

 and harmlessness by the music of the snake-charmers of 

 India, so that they have allowed themselves to be played 

 with, and afterwards have nestled peaceably for days in the 

 charmer's turban (Miss Gordon-Cumming). 



The owl is said to have an aversion to music (Mead). In 

 other animals, mere antipathy is apt if the obnoxious 

 sounds are continued to pass into fury. Further, music is 

 equally productive, sometimes, of morbid motor phenomena, 

 e.g. convulsions in a dog and cat, as cited by Mead. 



Other sounds, not musical, have frequently a terrifying 

 or disturbing effect, usually, probably, from the painful ideas 

 or associations to which they give rise. Thus the growls or 

 howls, or other sounds emitted by the larger and more 

 powerful feral animals, such as the lion, create extreme 

 alarm in those which are timid, smaller or less powerful 

 including especially the horse. The sound, like the sight, of 

 hated or dreaded persons or things, acts similarly by the 

 law of Association of Ideas. Thus the distant sound of the 

 approach of the bot-fly terrifies cattle to unmanageable- 

 ness, just as the mere sight of the breeze-fly produces 



