OCTOBEE 219 



more ' ; it is more correct to express it otherwise. He 

 becomes a corpse, of which the horrible bride makes a 

 hearty meal, and forthwith applies herself to attracting 

 another mate, who will be received with the customary 

 blandishments, and, having served his term, will be 

 disposed of in like manner as his predecessors. The 

 foul drama loses none of its horror from the fact that 

 the murderess possesses four pair of eyes. 



XL 



The evolution of articulate speech was one of the 

 chief enigmas that confronted Charles Dar- can the 

 win in formulating his doctrine of the ^^^ais 

 descent of Man. converse? 



' It is a remarkable fact,' he says, ' that an ape, one of the 

 Gibbons, produces an exact octave of musical sounds, ascend- 

 ing and descending the scale by half tones, so that this 

 monkey alone of brute mammals may be said to sing. From 

 this fact, and from the analogy of other animals, I have been 

 led to infer that the progenitors of man probably uttered 

 musical tones before they had acquired the power of articu- 

 late speech.' 



He proceeds to illustrate his proposition by the 

 peculiarities of sound uttered by infant man, and from 

 the cries of certain mammals and birds ; but, if I read 

 his discourse aright, he maintains throughout a fixed 

 distinction between articulate speech and inarticulate 

 vocal sound. One cannot but regret that he did not 

 live to welcome the invention of the gramophone, 

 which, by stereotyping sound, so to speak, would have 



