APPENDIX. 133 
StRucTURE oF MELopy. Human and Animal Music. — Contin. 
tion and sleep, ... whereas no such effect can be left from the modulation 
of birds, because those modulations, not being equally imitable by us, 
cannot affect our internal faculties in the same degree.” — Gassendi, P., in 
Vita Peireskii. 
Harmonic Affinities in Bird Music. (See p. 6.) 
For an interesting article on harmonic affinities as per- 
ceived and selected by the birds, the reader is referred 
to the late Mr. Xenos Clark’s “ Animal Music, its Nature 
and Origin” (American Naturalist, vol. xiii., April, 1879, 
pp. 209-223.) 
“The perfect fifths, fourths, thirds, and octaves,” he 
writes, “have a marked predominance, their proportion 
of the whole number being respectively twenty-seven 
per cent, twenty-five per cent, twenty-six per cent, and 
nine per cent, or taken all four together, eighty-seven 
per cent, as against thirteen per cent of the remaining 
five intervals.” 
Of course the notations on which such calculations are 
based must be correct or nothing is proven. A like cal- 
culation based on an equal number of the author’s nota- 
tions, selected from the songs of the choicer vocalists, 
would bring the percentage perhaps still higher. 
Dr. Weber, the organist, before quoted, says, “The 
intervals we observe most in the voices of animals are 
fifths, octaves, and thirds, and also fourths and sixths.” 
“ The cases of the starling, the piping bullfinch, and the mocking-bird, 
which can be taught to whistle a tune, show the same power still more 
highly developed. These instances prove not merely susceptibility to mu- 
sical sounds, but also a capacity for distinguishing the harmonic intervals. 
It is stated that some birds, even in the wild state, display considerable 
