734 I THE DESCENT OF MAN 



remarks on this subject," "doubts whether, even among the 

 nations of Western'fiarope, intimately connected as thej are 

 by close and frequent intercourse, the music of the one is 

 interpreted in the same sense by the others. By travelling 

 eastward we find that there is certainly a different language 

 of music. Songs of joy and dance accompaniments are no 

 longer, as with us, in the major keys, but always in the 

 minor." Whether or not the half -human progenitors of 

 man possessed, like the singing gibbons, the capacity of 

 producing, and therefore no doubt of appreciating, musical 

 notes, we know that man possessed these faculties at a very 

 remote period. M. Lartet has described two flutes, made 

 out of the bones and horns of the reindeer, found in caves 

 together with flint tools and the remains of extinct animals. 

 The arts of singing and of dancing are also very ancient, 

 and are now practiced by all or nearly all the lowest races 

 of man. Poetry, which may be considered as the ofEspring 

 of song, is likewise so ancient that many persons have felt 

 astonished that it should have arisen during the earliest ages 

 of which we have any record. 



We see that the musical faculties, which are not wholly 

 deficient in any race, are capable of prompt and high devel- 

 opment, for Hottentots and Negroes have become excellent 

 musicians, although in their native countries they rarely 

 practice anything that we should consider music. Schwein- 

 furth, however, was pleased with some of the simple melo- 

 dies which he heard in the interior of Africa. But there is 

 nothing anomalous in the musical faculties lying dormant 

 in man; some species of birds which never naturally sing 

 can, without much difficulty, be taught to do so; thus a 

 house sparrow has learned the song of a linnet. As these 

 two species are closely allied, and belong to the order of 

 Insessores, which includes nearly all the singing birds in 

 the world, it is possible that a progenitor of the sparrow 



s* "Journal of Anthropolog. See," Oct. IStO, p. civ. See, also, the several 

 later chapters in Sir John Lubbock's "Prehistoric Times," second edition, 1869^ 

 vrhich contain an admirable account of the habits of savages. 



