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SEXUAL SELECTION: MAN. 
Part IL 
remarks on this subject, doubts whether even amongst 
the nations of Western Europe, intimately connected 
as they are by close and frequent intercourse, the 
music of the one is interpreted in the same sense 
by the others. By travelling eastwards 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.’' 
Whetlier or not the half-human progenitors of man pos- 
sessed, like the before-mentioned gibbon, the capacity 
of producing, and no doubt of appreciating, musical 
notes, we have every reason to believe that man pos- 
sessed these faculties at a very remote period, for 
singing and music are extremely ancient arts. Poetry, 
which may be considered as the offspring of song, is- 
likewise so ancient that many persons have felt aston- 
ishment that it should have arisen during the earliest 
ages of which we have any record. 
The musical faculties, which are not wholly deficient 
in any race, are capable of prompt and high develop- 
ment, as we see with Hottentots and Negroes, who have 
readily become excellent musicians, although they do 
not practise in their native countries anything that we 
sliould esteem as music. But there is nothing ano- 
malous in this circumstance : some species of birds 
which never naturally sing, can without much difficulty 
be taught to perform ; thus the house-sparrow has learnt 
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 
quite possible or probable that a progenitor of the spar- 
‘ Journal of Antliropolog. Soc.’ Oct. 1870, p. civ. See also the 
several later chapters in Sir John Lubbock's ‘ Prehistoric Times, ^ 
second edition, 1869, which contain an admirable account of the habits 
of savages. 
