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Show 86 MEANS OF EXPRESSION CHAP. IV. some animals, after being domesticated, have acquired the habit of uttering sounds which were not natural to them. 1 Thus don1 stic dogs, and oven tamed jackals, have learnt to bark, which is a noise not proper to any specie~ of the genus, with the exception of the Canis latrans of North America, which is said to bark. Son1e breeds, also, of the domestic pigeon have learnt to coo in a new and quite peculiar manner. The character of the human voice, under the 1n~ fluence of various emotions, has been discussed by 1\Ir. Herbert Spencer 2 in his interesting essay on 1\Iusic. He clearly shows that the voice alters much under different conditions, in loudness and in quality, that is, in resonance and i'imbre, in pitch and intervals. No one can listen to an eloquent orator or preacher, or to a man calling angrily to another, or to one expressing astonishment, without being struck with the truth of Mr. Spencer's remarks. It is curious how early in life the modulation of the voice becomes expressive. \tVith one of my children, unde1~ the age of two year~, I clearly perceived that his hun1ph of assent was rendered by a slight modulation strongly emphatic; and that by a peculiar whine his negative expressed obstinate determination. Mr. Spencer further shows that emotional speech, in all the above respects i8 intimately related to vocal music, and consequently to instrumental music ; and he attempts to explain the characteristic qualities of both on physiological grounds, -namely, on "the general law that a feeling is a st.i" n1ulus to n1useular action." It may be admitted that 1 • 'eo the evidenco on this head in lllY 'Va~·iaLluu of Animals anrl Plaut~ undel' Domestication,' vol. i. p. 27. On the cooing of pigcom;, vol. i. pp. 154, 155. :! 'Essays, ::;cieutiiie, Political, u.ud ~pcculativc,' 1~58. 'The Origin A.nd Function of Musie,' p. o5V. CHAP. IV. IN ANil\IALS. 87 the. voice is affected through this law; but th expla· nation ~ppear~ to me t.oo general and vagne to throw -~uch hght on the various diffi rences, with the ex · p~ t1on ?f that of loudness, between ordinary speech and emotional speech, or singing. This remark holds good, whether w beli ve that the various qualities of the voice originated in speaking under the excitement of strong feelings, and that these qualities have subsequently been transferred to vocal music; or whether we believe, as I maintain, that the habit of uttering musical sounds was first developed, as a means of courtship, in the early progenitors of man, and thus became associated with the strongest emotions of which they were capable,-narnely, ardent love, rivalry and triumph. That animals utter musical notes is familiar to every one, as we may daily hear in the ~inging of bird::;. It is a n1ore re1narkable fact that an ape, one of the Gibbons, produces an exact octave of n1usical sounds, ascending and descending the scale by half-tones; so that this n1onkey "alone of brute rnanl" mals n1ay be said to sing." 3 ~-,rom this iact, and from the analogy of other animals, I have been led to infer that the progenitor::; of man probably uttered m nsical tones, before they had acquired the power of Hrticulate speech; and that consequently, when the voice is used under any strong emotion, it tends to a~sume, through the principle of association, a musical eharacter. We can plainly perceive, with some of the lower animals, that the males em ploy their voiees to 3 'The Descent of Man,' 1870, vol. ii. p. 332. The wol'cls quoted al'e from Pl'ofessor Owen. It has lately been shown that some q uarhnp dli much lower in tho ~:Jcale thau monkeys, uamcly l{odents, are ablo to prolluce correct musical tones: see the aeeuunt of a ::;inging Ilcsporomy ·, uy the Rev. S. Lockwood, iu the 'American Naturalist,' vol. v. December, 1871, p. 7tH. |