BIRDS AT THEIR BEST 23 



various instruments, the solos and orchestral 

 sounds, which are in his thoughts. It is true 

 that he is a creator, and listens mentally to 

 compositions that have never been previously 

 heard ; but he cannot imagine, or cannot 

 hear mentally, any note or combination of 

 notes which he has never heard with his 

 physical sense. In creating he selects from the 

 infinite variety of sounds whose images exist in 

 his mind, and, rearranging them, produces new 

 effects. 



The difference in the brains, with regard to 

 their sound-storing power, of the accompUshed 

 musician and the ordinary person who does not 

 know one tune from another and has but fleeting 

 impressions of sounds in general, is no doubt 

 enormous ; probably it is as great as that which 

 exists in the logical faculty between a professor 

 of that science in one of the Universities and a 

 native of the Andaman Islands or of Tierra del 

 Fuego. It is, we see, a question of training : any 

 person with a normal brain who is accustomed to 

 listen appreciatively to certain sounds, natural 

 or artificial, must store his mind with the images 

 of such sounds. And the open-air naturalist. 



