282 



ON VOICE AND LANGUAGE ; 



music whicil they generally begin in the evening and contiaue through the 

 greater part of the night. Two or three species, possessed of a similar 

 kind of apparatus, are very clamorous animals ; and, pretending to a know- 

 ledge of the weather, are peculiarly noisy before rain or thunder-storms ; 

 while several, as the jocular and laughing toad (r an a n^iftwnda and r. 5om- 

 bina) are of a merrier mood, and seem to imitate with tolerable exactness 

 the laugh of the human voice, in the hey-dey of their activity, which is 

 always in the evening. 



Among the bird tribes there are some possessed of powers of voice so 

 singular, independently of that of their own natural music, that I cannot 

 consent to pass them over in total silence. The note of the pipra musica^ 

 or tuneful manakin, is not only intrinsically sweet, but forms a complete 

 octave ; one note succeeding another in ascending, and measured intervals, 

 through the whole range of its diapason. This bird is an inhabitant of 

 St. Domingo, of a black tint, with a blue crown and yellow front and 

 rump ; about four inches long, very shy, and dexterous in eluding the vigi- 

 lance of such as attempt to take it. The imitative power of several spe- 

 cies of the corvus and psittacus kinds is well-known ; the jays and parrots 

 are those most commonly taught, and the far-famed parrot of the late 

 Colonel O'Kelly, which could repeat twenty of our most popular songs, 

 and sing them to their proper tunes, has been, 1 suppose, seen and heard 

 by most of us. The bulfinch (loxia Pyrrhida)^ however, has a better 

 voice, as well as a more correct taste in copyhig musical tones, and the 

 bird-breeders of Germany find a lucrative employment in training multi- 

 tudes of this family for a foreign market. 



The talents of the nightingale (motacilla Lucina) for speaking, are, 

 likewise, said to be very extraordinary, and even equal to his talents for 

 singing. But where is the man, whose bosom burns with a single spark 

 of the love of nature, that could for one moment consent that this pride 

 and delight of the groves should barter away the sweet wildness of its- 

 native wood-notes for any thing that art can ofter in its stead ? 



There is no species, however, so much entitled to notice on account of 

 its voice, as the polyglottus, or mocking-bird. This is an individual of 

 the thrush kind ; its own natural note is delightfully musical and solemn ; 

 but beyond this it possesses an instinctive talent of imitating the note of 

 every other kind of singing bird, and even the voice of every bird of prey 

 so exactly as to deceive the very kinds it attempts to mock. Jt is more- 

 over playful enough to find amusement in the deception ; and takes a plea- 

 sure in decoying smaller birds near it by mimicking their notes, when it 

 frightens them almost to death, or drives them away with all speed, by. 

 pouring upon them the screams of such birds of prey as they dread. 



Now it is clear that the imitative, like the natural voice, has its seat in 

 the cartilages and other moveable powers that form the larynx : for the 

 great body of the trachea only gives measure to the sound, and renders it 

 more or less copious in proportion to its volume. It is not, therefore, to 

 be wondered at, that a similar sort of imitative power should be sometimes 

 cultivated with success in the human larynx ; and that we should occa- 

 sionally meet with persons, who, from long and dexterous practice, should 

 be able to imitate the notes of almost all the singing-birds of the woods, 

 or the sounds of other animals, or even to personate the diflferent voices of 

 orators and other public speakers. 



One of the most extraordinary instances of this last kind consists in the 



