Chap. XIX. 
MUSICAL POWERS. 
333 
all other animals, it is highly probable that it utters its 
musical notes especially during the season of courtship. 
The perception, if not the enjoyment, of musical 
cadences and of rhythm is probably common to all ani- 
mals, and no doubt depends on the common physio- 
logical nature of their nervous systems. kven Crus- 
taceans, which are not capable of producing any 
voluntary sound, possess certain auditory hairs, which 
have been seen to vibrate when the proper musical notes 
are struck. 29 It is well known that some dogs howl 
when hearing particular tones. Seals apparently ap- 
preciate music, and their fondness for it “was well 
“ known to the ancients, and is often taken advantage 
of by the hunters at the present day” 3 \Vith all 
those animals, namely insects, amphibians, and birds, 
the males of which during the season of courtship 
incessantly produce musical notes or mere rhythmical 
sounds, we must believe that the females are able to 
appreciate them, and arc thus excited or charmed; 
otherwise the incessant efforts of the males and the 
complex structures often possessed exclusively by them 
would he useless. .... 
With man song is generally admitted to be the basis 
or origin of instrumental music. As neither the enjoy- 
ment nor the capacity of producing musical notes are 
faculties of the least direct use to man in reference 
to his ordinary habits of life, they must be ranked 
amongst the most mysterious with which he is endowed. 
They are present, though in a very rude and as it 
appears almost latent condition, in men of a, 11 races, 
even the most savage ; hut so different is the taste of 
the different races, that our music gives not the least 
pleasure to savages, and their music is to us hideous 
23 Helmholtz, ‘ The'orie Pliys. de la Musique,’ 1S68, p. 187. 
80 Mr. R. Brown, in ‘Proc. Zoo. Soc.’ 1868, p. 410. 
