22 The American Naturalist. [January 
INSTANCES OF THE EFFECTS OF MUSICAL SOUNDS 
ON ANIMALS. 
BY ROBERT E. C. STEARNS. 
no years ago I observed in a casual way the effect of musi- 
cal sounds upon certain animals, and was inclined to pursue 
the inquiry and endeavor to learn by careful experiment through 
the medium of music how far or in what degree there might exist 
between man and certain animals that fellow-feeling which makes 
the whole world kin. 
The fraternal relation between dog and man, whether the latter 
be civilized or savage, is too well known to require remark. So, 
too, with other animals which man has domesticated, notably the 
horse and cat. 
Some four or five years ago, at a meeting of the Biological 
Section of the British Association, Sir John Lubbock read some 
interesting notes on the intelligence of the dog. The man and 
the dog he said, have lived together in more or less intimate as- 
sociation for many thousands of years, and yet it must be con- 
fessed that they know comparatively little of one another. That 
the dog is a loyal, true, and affectionate friend must be gratefully 
admitted, but when we come to consider the psychical nature of. 
the animal, the limits of our knowledge are almost immediately 
reached. I have elsewhere suggested that this arises very much 
from the fact that hitherto we have tried to teach animals rather 
than to learn from them—to convey our ideas to them rather 
than to devise any language or code of signals by which they 
might communicate theirs to us. 
So it occurred to me that we might learn something of the 
animals around and about us,—add somewhat to the stock of 
knowledge, and get many interesting hints, some useful and some 
curious, as to their inner nature,—by the aid of music or musical 
sounds, by observing the effect of such sounds upon them. 

