THE QUEST FOR THE WILD HORSE.
The sustaining hope of the discoverer of the unknown is seldom wholly vague or visionary. No man, as a rule, breaks into a new world by accident or hap-hazard. New worlds, or lands, or men, or beasts, have lived in the imagination, and been foreshadowed and foretold by a hundred minute and subtle inductions, grouping themselves round the central idea in minds so set on finding what they felt was to be found, that in the end their quest was gained, and they have been able to tell the world that what they felt must exist, did exist, and was found. Even though the nominal object of his search be prosaic and matter-of-fact, the explorer generally cherishes some dear ideal, some side-issue, some pet project of his own in the realm of discovery, which his efforts shall bring to light, and which will realize some reasoned result of his own sagacity and foresight. When Pythias, the first navigator of the Northern seas, was sent on a “commercial mission” by the colonists of Marseilles to find the tin-islands, he performed the practical part of his mission with all good faith and diligence; but to him, the man of science, the mathematician and astronomer, the bare discovery of new tribes of barbarians, new islands, and half-frozen seas, could have brought no such nights of triumph as that on which he tracked the Sun to his lair behind the Lapland mountain, and saw the brilliant creature slip again from his cavern, after his brief but necessary repose. Such must have been the triumph of Columbus when he fancied that he identified on the shores of America the plants and streams of India and Cathay; and such, in some sense, the feelings of Prejvalski, the latest traveller to seek the Eastern limits of the Old World through new and untried paths, when he realized his hope of discovering in the deserts of Mongolia the wild camel and the wild horse.
The experiences of this Russian soldier when he had penetrated into the regions behind the plateau of Tibet to the mysterious lake of Koko-Nor, lying 10,000 ft. above the sea, are more in the spirit and setting of the journals of Columbus than any tale of travel of modern times. The lake, blue as a sapphire, lay in a setting of dull salt sand, with an encircling rim of snowy mountains. Outside and beyond the mountains lay on one side the forbidden land of China; on another, Tibet, with its frozen and stereo-typed government of a priestly caste; and on the west, the broken tribes of Eastern Turkestan. As he passed towards the great Desert of Gobi, which divides the dwindling population on one side of the mountains from the decaying civilization on the other, he found himself almost alone among the primitive animals and birds of the centre of the Old World; and as the old Greeks imagined, and as Darwin found in Patagonia, and voyagers at either Pole, that at the ends of the world Nature was simplified, with fewer and more primitive forms, so, in the “centre of the world,” Prejvalski found that in these remote and solitary regions he was face to face with some of the early and original types of those animals which man enslaved and turned to his own uses, at such a distance of time that the original types were believed to have perished for ever. The hope of discovering the “undescended dark original” of some of our domesticated animals, especially of those ancient servants of Eastern mankind, the camel and the horse, seems to have been ever present to the mind of Prejvalski, and to have affected his imagination as the vision of the shining walls of El Dorado did the old adventurers, or the hope of finding the mother-rock of the gold, the gold-seekers of our day. From the sapphire lake of Koko-Nor he pushed towards the North-West across the plain of Tsaidam, a strange, unfinished region, once the bed of a huge lake, a waste of sand, salt-impregnated clay, and marshes, through clouds of mosquitoes and gadflies, towards another lake, called Lob-Nor, lying in an extension of the great Desert of Gobi. He had marked how, as he journeyed across Asia westward, all the elements of Nature grew more simple and severe, and that as the more complex landscape resolved itself into waterless mountains, salt lakes, and rude vegetation, so the types of animal life grew constantly more primitive. He had left behind him the semi-wild horses of the Don and Southern Russia, and seen the still wilder ponies of the Mongols, “under the average height, with thick necks, large heads, thick legs, and long, shaggy coats.” The camels of the Koko-Nor were smaller and rougher than those further West, and he rejoiced to think that he must now be approaching the original home of the wild camel, and even of the wild horse. “Such a journey,” he wrote, “must finally set at rest the question of the existence of wild camels and wild horses; the people have repeatedly told me of both, and described them fully.” The wild camels were said to live in North-West Tsaidam, and to have smaller humps and more pointed muzzles than the tame camels, and grey hair. They were hunted for food, and were exceedingly fleet, wary, and suspicious of man. These stories of the Mongols were found to be correct. Several skins of the wild camel were brought to the traveller, and he was at last rewarded by a sight of one of them, though the distance was too great to enable him to shoot it or compare it with the tame animals. Later, however, some have been taken alive, and the existence of the wild camel in the Desert of Gobi may be taken as established.[[3]]
[3]. The skins and skeletons of the wild camel are now on view at the Natural History Museum.
The Mongol accounts of the wild horses, though equally positive, were less satisfactory. They were certain that there did exist wild horses in the same districts as the wild camels; and they were also certain that these were distinct from the horselike kiang, the wild ass of Eastern Turkestan and Mongolia. The kiangs do, in fact, resemble a Mongol horse in many points. They have the same heavy head, square shoulder, chestnut colour, and short ears; but they differ in having their lower parts almost white, and a true ass’s tail. They neigh, but also bray, and, when going at full speed, have the characteristic appearance of an ass with “great ugly head stretched out straight before, and scanty tail straight behind,” as Prejvalski says. They are, in fact, probably only a variety of the wild ass of Persia and Western Turkestan. But the Mongol accounts of the wild horse were quite inconsistent with the description of the kiangs. “The wild horses,” they said, “were numerous near Lob-Nor, but were so shy that when frightened they continued their flight for days. They were of a uniform bay [? dun] colour, with black tails, and manes sweeping the ground; and were never hunted because they were too difficult of approach.” Prejvalski obtained the skin of one of these wild horses; but the evidence so obtained did not bear out the account given by the Mongols, who seem to have fallen into the usual error of imagining that in the “wild horse” they would find the species in a condition of original and primitive perfection. Of course nothing could be more contrary to probabilities. “Wild” animals, compared with domesticated descendants of the same species, occupy much the same position as “wild” plants do to their descendants in the garden; and the absence of fine legs and a flowing mane in the Equus Prejvalskii made the place assigned to it as the ancestor of the modern horse all the more probable. Now the news comes that the wild horse of Prejvalski has been seen, hunted, and captured by two Russian travellers, the brothers Grum-Grizimailo, and that four specimens have been brought to the Zoological Gardens of St. Petersburg from their Central Asian home. These creatures are said to correspond in all respects with the skin obtained by Prejvalski, and to represent the ancestors of all our modern horses. From a picture of the animal which appeared in the Graphic, there seems some reason to doubt whether they may not, after all, be only a variety of the kiang, or wild ass of Turkestan. They have the ass’s hog-mane, and a tail in which the long hairs, though not confined to the tip, do not begin to grow until some inches from the root. Neither has the animal any forelock. On the other hand, the ears are short, not long, as in all the ass tribe, and the square shoulder is not more characteristic of the asses than of all neglected breeds of horses. Moreover, it is a commonplace in natural history, that the primitive characteristics are shown in the young; and the thin tail, short neck, and head set on so as to make an angle with the throat instead of a curve, are as characteristic of a young colt as of the Equus Prejvalskii. But, apart from all external differences between the ass and the horse, lies the inexplicable fact that the latter adapts itself to changed conditions in almost all climates, while the former does not. Under human care and selection, the horse varies so rapidly, that we meet with all extremes, from the dray-horse to the Shetland, and all colours from black to white. But the ass in the last five thousand years has varied little. It will not thrive except in hot climates, and centuries of careful breeding have not caused it to change colour further than from grey to white,[[4]] and have done little to make it a pleasant animal to ride, or big enough for heavy draught. These facts give a starting-point from which we may judge whether or not the Equus Prejvalskii is of the true stock. Let those recently brought to Russia be made the nucleus of a herd, and the variations of successive generations be noted. Then if they are true horses, they will vary first in colour, then in shape, and human selection ought to be able to guide the varieties towards different types. If, on the other hand, they be asses, they will refuse to vary, and remain true to the type of the steppes of Dsungaria.
[4]. There are black donkeys, but most appear to be instances of “melanism” rather than of colour gradation.
Even in our own New Forest, this difference between the horse and the ass is curiously persistent. In the Southern Forest there are many hundreds of semi-wild donkeys, as well as ponies, which are left to Nature from year to year. The ponies are of every colour known in the annals of horse-breeding, but the shaggy little donkeys are all of a uniform dark stone-colour, which never varies. Looking at the beautiful wild asses from the Desert of Cutch, Southern Africa, and Central Asia, which are exhibited at the Zoo, one is tempted to wonder how it comes that the race in this country has been allowed to degenerate, instead of being retained as a strong and useful auxiliary to our unrivalled breed of horses.
ÆSTHETICS AT THE ZOO.
THE ANIMAL SENSE OF BEAUTY.
That sense of beauty to which the gorgeous plumage of the male birds in many species is an obvious and direct appeal, is by no means limited to the knowledge so naïvely shown by resplendent husbands and adoring wives, that fine feathers make fine birds. So common and varied is the pleasure derived from this sense, that in many kinds it extends to the conscious search for and appliance of beautiful objects in the decoration of nests, of pleasure-houses, and the enrichment of collections. This taste for ornament is by no means limited to birds kept in captivity, in which they often learn tricks and habits foreign to their nature, from ennui and idleness. In the freedom of English woods or Papuan jungles, they show the keenest pleasure in the strange or beautiful shapes and colours of flowers, of feathers, of fruits, of gay shells and insects, of woven fabrics, of metal, glass, and gems; and similar tastes shown in captivity are often but the survival and maimed reproduction of their natural love for surrounding themselves with what pleases the eye. It appears in species where it might be least expected, and is developed to a point at which it becomes an artistic passion identical in motive and the means taken to gratify it, with the same taste and its expression by civilized man. It is not without reason that the Papuan, who lives naked under a tree, calls the gardener-bird “the master,” which can build not only a nest, but a lovely pleasure-house besides, and adorns this with a hundred beautiful objects to satisfy æsthetic wants which the savage is not yet developed enough to feel or understand.
The gardener-bird has not yet become established at the Zoo, but the bower-birds build their gallery every spring, and decorate it with such “articles of vertu” as visitors are kind enough to place at their disposal. The bower-birds live in the compartments of the western Aviary nearest to and on the left of the main entrance. Apart from the claims to sympathy which their æsthetic tastes suggest, the birds themselves are singularly handsome, courageous, and active, and thoroughly enjoy the excitement and change of scene which is so distasteful to many creatures confined in a public menagerie. They are strongly-built, compact-looking birds, almost as large as a rook, but in general shape something between a thrush and the Indian mynah. The male in his adult plumage is a splendid purple, while the hen-bird is green and olive, almost as brilliant as the colours of the ground parakeets. They hop from perch to perch with wonderful agility, and whether on the ground or in the branches, are seldom still, but always active, inquisitive, and alert.
In the first warm days of early spring they begin to collect materials for the bower. The twigs of a birch-broom are usually given them for the raw material, and these are soon arranged with astonishing skill into two short incurved hedges, the tops being pulled over to make the bower as nearly like a tunnel as the material admits. If they had a larger allowance of brooms no doubt the tunnel would be made longer. As it is, it is only a section of a gallery. When this is complete nothing makes the birds so happy as presents of bright-coloured objects to arrange round the sides of the playground. Unfortunately for the birds, the mice, which have no æsthetic perceptions, but are of a practical turn of mind, steal everything soft which is put in the bower, to make nests for their own young. All pieces of coloured paper, rags, and tinsel are carried off in the night, or even in the day, so that the birds can only rely for permanent ornament on things not only bright but hard. But their taste for colour may easily be tested by giving them shreds of paper of different hues. If it be merely a question of colour, not of texture, they usually prefer red, picking out the red strips first and trying the effect in different parts of the gallery. That their power of selection is highly developed may be judged from the following example. The writer was looking at the birds early in January, when they showed signs of a wish to build, and happened to have in his pocket some specimens of silk, which had been sent in order to make a selection of a pattern for neckties. The utmost variation from black allowed by the severe taste of London costume being some slight pattern of white, or grey spots, the difference in the “colouring” of these little bits of silk was so slight, as to be hardly appreciable by any but the highly specialized sense of adornment in the masculine mind, consisting as it did of more or less frequent repetitions of little groups of spots or other insignificant pattern. Eight or nine of these were thrown on the floor of the aviary, and the cock-bird at once flew out from the recess at the back, and proceeded to pick them up and scrutinize them one by one. Finally, after much consideration, it took to the bower, which was just begun, the piece of silk on which the pattern was closest and most obvious. Their liking for what is bright and shining in texture is even stronger than that for colour. Some ingenious friend, finding that the mice robbed the birds of their papers and silks, presented them with a number of small glass phials filled with coloured shreds, or with tin and brass filings. These were a source of great delight, and when the supply was further increased by a dozen pretty glass solitaire balls, they spent a week in arranging and re-arranging their treasures.
It is obvious that the bower-birds are highly intelligent creatures, but these tastes appear in birds which are quite low in the scale of mental development, even among the hawks, which are among the least keen-witted of the birds. The kite, for instance, has a great liking for pretty things, or what it considers such. In two of the rare instances in which the kite’s nest has been recently found in this country, the cock-bird had carried home a long, trailing spray of woodbine in flower, and left it by the side of its mate. When kites were common in England, their habit of carrying off to their nests any strange objects which took their fancy was well known. “The white sheet bleaching on the hedge” has as great attractions for them as it had for Autolycus. Shakespeare makes the pedlar refer to this habit. “My traffic is sheets,” he says; “when the kite builds, look to lesser linen.” But the bird, though as much a “snapper-up of unconsidered trifles” as Autolycus himself, is only a fine-art and bric-à-brac collector in its way, and is perhaps not more unscrupulous in annexing the specimens that take its fancy. In a kite’s nest found not long ago in this country, the “collection” was enriched by pieces of newspaper and leaves of “Bradshaw’s Railway Guide!”—and on the few estates in England where these birds are still protected, the keepers are said to be quite aware of their mania for collecting linen when laid out to dry, and carrying off socks and bright cotton handkerchiefs to the nest.
The sense of beauty naturally appears, in the rudest and most elementary form, in such uncouth robbers as the kites. In the far cleverer crows, ravens, magpies, and jays, it is a marked and hereditary passion. From the Jackdaw of Rheims to the old raven at the Tower of London, who amassed a unique and valuable collection at the bottom of one of the venerable cannon inside the Barbican, there can hardly have existed a tame member of the tribe which has not at times asserted its own right to a share in the enjoyment of what we remember to have seen described in the pompous advertisement of a modern art furnisher, as “those products of the minor arts which contribute to the dignity and refinement of domestic life.” They have a wide and catholic sense of feeling for what may contribute to their happiness in this way, and do not always distinguish between what is beautiful and what is merely curious. At the same time, they do often distinguish and keep apart what they collect or steal for food, and their art collections, which are hidden separately, and far more carefully concealed. The writer has seen this in the case of tame jays and jackdaws, and has known it practised by a raven and a magpie. The latter always hid the crusts, and especially the small squares of toast made ready for soup, which he stole or had given him in the kitchen, between the layers of household linen in the drying-room of a large house in Northumberland. But his “collections” were buried in the straw in a disused outhouse. The loss of several small cups and saucers out of a bright-coloured set belonging to the children led to the discovery of this hoard, as the bird was seen to enter the shed, and was there found pulling away the straw which covered the china.
So far, we have traced the development of this sense of beauty from the kites, which merely pick up and carry to their nests what they consider to be pretty and interesting, to the crow tribe, which have a separate hiding-place for keeping and enjoying their treasures. The conscious search for and application of ornament to the decoration of the fabric of the nest, even at the risk of its danger and discovery through the gratification of their feeling for beauty, is a further and most remarkable evidence of the pleasure which they derive from that sense; for one of the strongest impulses of the nesting bird is to subordinate the colour and texture of the outside of the nest to the tint of its natural surroundings, and none but a strong and tempting bias to the indulgence of a contrary instinct could compete with their natural solicitude for the safety of their young. Yet two undoubted instances of the addition of ornament by English birds to the outside of a nest have come under the writer’s notice, where its use clearly entailed some danger from the enemy. The first was the nest of a chiff-chaff, found in a plantation near Rosamond’s Bower, on the Isis, near Godstow. It was a domed nest of the usual kind, made of dry, colourless grass, with an entrance in the side. But on the outside, and round the entrance to the chamber, were stuck several of the brilliant blue feathers of the kingfisher. The position of these bright patches of colour on the outside of the nest is strong evidence that beauty, not utility, was the object of their insertion. The other case was the nest of a goldfinch, which was built on a high branch of a sycamore, near the window of a house at Sidmouth in Devonshire. When the fabric of the nest was completed, the birds, or rather one bird, for the other was constantly employed in building, brought long pieces of the blue forget-me-not from the next garden, and so adjusted the sprays that the flowers hung all round the top of the nest. The sacrifice of safety to beauty did not cause any risk from below, as the nest was at a considerable height from the ground. Unfortunately it attracted the notice of a jackdaw passing overhead, and the black robber plundered the nest of the eggs on which the bird had been sitting for some days. It may be noticed that in both these cases, in each of which there was a large choice of flowers or feathers—for the feathers which lined the chiff-chaff’s nest were brought from a farmyard near—the irresistible colour was light-blue. This decorative instinct finds its final and complete expression in the bower-birds, and the still more interesting gardener-bird of New Guinea, both of which construct an “art gallery” for the reception of their treasures, and the better enjoyment of their sense of the beautiful. These bowers are in no sense nests, but “palaces of art” for the days of their honeymoon, and are quite apart from the later cares of the nest or nursery. The best of all are the galleries of the gardener-birds, which Count Rosenberg recently found in New Guinea.
“It was a piece of workmanship more lovely than the ingenuity of any animal has been known to construct,” writes the discoverer. “It was a temple in miniature, in the midst of a meadow studded with flowers.” The bird, which is not much larger than a thrush, chooses a level place round some shrub which has a straight stem about the thickness of a walking-stick. To this central pilaster it fastens the stems of a kind of orchid, and draws them outwards to the ground, like the cords of a bell-tent; but the leaves are left on the stems, and remain fresh for some time. The upper part is then fitted together, and the leaves and moss make a beautiful umbrella-shaped roof. In front of the central building, the birds clear a space about a yard in diameter, which they cover with moss, after removing all stones and weeds. On this moss carpet they arrange flowers and brilliant fruits in great variety, and of the brightest colours to be found. Showy fungi and elegantly coloured insects are distributed about the garden, and inside the tent, and when these lose their freshness, they are thrown away and replaced by others. The tent itself is about thirty-nine inches in diameter and eighteen inches high. The Papuans never disturb these bowers. They call the builder the “Master Bird,” or “Tukan Robin,” the “Gardener,” and say that it is wiser than mankind—and judged by the Papuan standard, this estimate is a true one. In the gallery of one of the bower-birds half a peck of decorations was found. Among these were a large white shell, four hundred shells of a bright-coloured snail, flints and agates, red seed-pods and seeds, and the bleached and shining bones of animals. If for shells we read mother-of-pearl; for snail-shells, nautilus cups; for flints and agates, agates and malachite; for seeds, beads; and for bones, ivory, where does the taste for beauty in the bird differ from our own?
ÆSTHETICS AT THE ZOO.
SCENTS AND SOUNDS.
One of the oddest tales in the “Bestiaries,” or stories of Bible animals written by the monks, is the legend of the panther. “The panther,” so the homily runs, “is the most beautiful of all beasts. More than this, when it goes abroad it diffuses a marvellous sweet perfume. This odour is so sweet that all the other beasts and birds follow the panther wherever it goes. Wherefore the panther is a type of Virtue.” Perhaps the old monks who borrowed and embellished this story had heard and misunderstood the strong love of sweet scents which the panther and its relations, the lions and leopards, often show. The old theory of animal liking for scents denied them any share in such pleasures unless they suggested the presence of their food or prey. But such a reason can hardly be alleged for a lion’s liking for lavender-water! The writer, wishing to test for himself the reported fondness of many animals for perfumes, paid a series of visits to the Zoological Gardens, provided with bottles of scent and a packet of cotton-wool, and there tried some harmless experiments which apparently gave great satisfaction to many of the inhabitants. Lavender-water was the favourite scent, and most of the lions and leopards showed unqualified pleasure when the scent was poured on the wool and put into their cages. The first leopard to which it was offered stood over the ball of cotton, shut his eyes, opened his mouth, and screwed up its nose, rather like the picture of the gentleman inhaling “Alkaram” in the advertisement. It then lay down and held it between its paws, rubbed its face over it, and finished by lying down upon it. Another leopard smelt it and sneezed; then caught the wool in its claws, played with it, then lay on its back and rubbed its head and neck over the scent. It then fetched another leopard which was asleep in the cage, and the two sniffed it for some time together; and the last-comer ended by taking the ball in its teeth, curling its lips well back, and inhaling the delightful perfume with half-shut eyes. The lion and lioness, when their turn came, tried to roll upon it at the same time. The lion then gave the lioness a cuff with his paw, which sent her off to the back of the cage, and having secured it for himself, laid his broad head on the morsel of scented cotton, and purred. These were all old inhabitants of the Gardens, civilized. But at the end of the building was the lovely young Sokoto lion, with the spots of “cubhood” still showing like a pattern in damask on his skin. If he too liked the scent, it could hardly be an acquired taste. His reception of the new impression was different from that of the others. He lay down inhaling the scent with a dreamy look in his eyes. Then he made faces and yawned, turned his back on the scent, and thought. He then inhaled the perfume again for some time, walked slowly off to his bed, and lay down to sleep.
Tiger after smelling Lavender-Water. From a
photograph by Gambier Bolton.
The smaller cats were in many cases as pleased with the scent as the leopards, the ocelot in particular on one occasion, after inhaling the perfume, ate the small piece of paper on which it was poured. But the liking for lavender-water is by no means confined to the felidæ. The Cape ratels were delighted with the scent, and the racoon, when the bottle was presented to it corked, with great good sense pulled out the stopper; but this may have been due to curiosity, as it was at once thrown away. Other creatures, on the contrary, either cared nothing for the scent or found it disagreeable. An otter, in particular, gave a snort of disgust, dived into the water, and then ran to its mate, to whom it seemed to convey some of its impressions, for both otters carefully avoided the perfumed wool. No doubt there lies somewhere in our rivers, “under the glassy, cool translucent wave,” or on their flower-bordered banks, some odorous herb or water-weed which the otter also loves. That the pleasure felt by so many animals in the odour of “sweet lavender” is due to pure and simple enjoyment of a perfume, made intensely more delightful to them than to ourselves by the wonderful development of their sense of smell, seems clear, not only from the fact that so many species share this amiable fondness for the scent, but also because their liking for perfumes is by no means limited to that of lavender. A flask of rose-water will make as many friends among the leopards and their kin as will the former scent, and they also enjoy the sweet odour of pinks and lilac-blossom. The heavy scent of lilies and narcissi fails to please, perhaps on account of their strong narcotic qualities. It is not unlikely that the scent of these plants, with which the Furies were said to stupefy their victims, an odour which is often insupportable to men themselves, should be distasteful to their far more sensitive nostrils.
It could hardly be expected that, in the matter of sweet sound, animals, any more than men, should think alike. The scent of the rose gives pleasure from the Himalayas to the Hebrides; but the music that soothes the Highlander is to the Japanese as the howling of cats. Still, as to some men certain sounds are always musical, so to some animals these same sounds give pleasure. The taste finds perhaps its highest expression in those birds which actually learn to whistle the airs which they have heard from men, and its lowest in the snakes and reptiles, which seem to be fascinated by the Indian pipe. The writer has heard more than one parrot whistle part of a tune, and then strike the octave of the last note; and the piping crow at the Zoological Gardens, and a Persian bulbul, which was once an inmate of the same aviary, can whistle a tune perfectly. It is to be expected that birds which take such pleasure in each other’s songs should be most sensitive to sweet sounds new to them.
But the taste is not confined to birds. The old horses in the regimental riding-schools learn the meaning of the different bugle-calls; and though it is not possible to say whether they distinguish between different airs, it is well known that they trot or gallop better to some tunes than to others. This may be compared with a curious story told by Playford in his Introduction to Music. “When travelling some years since,” he writes, “I met on the road to Royston a herd of about twenty bucks following a bagpipe and a violin: while the music played they went forward; when it ceased they all stood still; and in this manner they were brought out of Yorkshire to Hampton Court.” Seals have long been known for their love of sweet sounds. Laing, in his account of a voyage to Spitzbergen, says that when a violin was played on board the vessel, a numerous audience of seals would often assemble and follow the vessel for miles. Sir Walter Scott mentions this taste in the lines,—
“Rude Heiskar’s seals, through surges dark,
Would oft pursue the minstrel’s bark;”
and it is said that when the bell of the church on the island of Hoy rang, the seals within hearing swam to the shore, and remained looking about them as long as it was tolled. In a less prosaic age, the seals of Hoy might have become an established myth of a successful “deep-sea mission” to the mermaids of the North. It would be interesting to make some musical experiments at the Zoological Gardens; but the first occasion on which the writer attempted this, led to such strong suspicion of his insanity among the visitors, that in the face of a caution addressed by an elderly nurse to her charges, “Don’t go near ’im—he ain’t right in his ’ead,” he had not the courage to continue his researches.
Note.—In a letter to the writer, the late Dr. John Rae, F.R.S., the discoverer of the fate of the Franklin Expedition, urged that he should nevertheless make some trial of the effects of music on the different animals at the Zoo. Dr. Rae spent the days of his boyhood in the Orkney and Shetland Islands, and said that both there and in the regions round the frozen rim of the northern ocean, it was matter of common experience that the seals would follow a boat in which music was played. The following chapters give the interesting result of this suggestion.
ORPHEUS AT THE ZOO.
THE FIRST VISIT.
In making trial, with the aid of a skilled musician, of the effect of sweet sounds on animal ears, we knew that there was good reason to doubt whether Orpheus himself might not fail to charm within the precincts of the Zoo. For if, on the one hand, the creatures so far share the blessings of the golden age that they entertain a liking rather than a fear of man, and have no dread of a possible enemy behind the mask of music, many of them are no strangers to such forms of it as are produced by the harmony of a band which plays there weekly in summer evenings. To those creatures which have lived for years in that part of the Gardens near the band-stand, the sound of music is no new thing; and it was possible that they might be as indifferent to its strains as an organ-grinder’s monkey to the music of the street. On the other hand, there must be many to which, either from living at a distance from the musical centre of the band-stand, or in separate buildings, such sounds are new and unusual; and others which are but recent arrivals in the Gardens, fresh from tropical forests, or the wastes and deserts of an unmusical world. In any case, to listen to the distant strains of a brass-band is a different experience from that enjoyed in a chamber recital by your own violin-player, one who can draw from his instrument by sympathetic skill melodious chords, sounds soft and weird, grave and gay, strident or tremulous, harmonious or suddenly discordant, eye watching eye, and quick to change or repeat a note as he marks the varying expression of emotion roused by sound on animal faces, sometimes strangely expressive, or on others in which for minutes the eye alone gives token even of life. It was on some of these last, the snakes and creeping things, that we proposed first to make trial of the powers of sound,—partly because Eastern traditions of snake-charming are some of the oldest in the world; partly because, if they proved unresponsive, this would still leave room to hope that creatures of a higher organization and warmer blood might be more appreciative; and lastly, the day was dark, with thunder and rain, and Orpheus himself, in his sylvan concerts, might have failed to charm with wetted strings.
Before visiting the cobras and the pythons, we made our way to the Insect House, with some design of making trial of the tarantula spider, our violinist having a theory of his own that spiders had a liking for harmonious sound; partly, too, from a mixed feeling that the tarantula, whose bite makes others dance, should itself have a feeling for musical numbers. Apparently the tarantula’s powers are objective only, for it remained in its corner sulky and unmoved. But a nest of scorpions was less indifferent. After the piece of bark behind which these venomous creatures were lurking had been gently overturned, and they had settled down to their usual semi-slumbrous state, the violinist played chords, at first gentle and melodious, then rising to a high and sustained series of piercing notes. In a few moments, one after another, the creatures began to move, the mass became violently agitated, and the torpid scorpions awoke into a writhing tangle of legs and claws and stings. When the sounds ceased, they became still; when the loud, shrill notes were played again, they were again agitated. The talking mynah, which lives in the same room, sprang from end to end of its cage with ecstatic hops, and whistled and coughed, and gave evidence that it at least was a critical listener to the rival musician. The pretty dappled Axis deer, which live in a little paddock by the path, were our next audience; and as we passed them on our way to the snakes’ house, a few soft chords were played by way of trial. The deer were at once attracted, and drew near the railings, with ears pointed forward. While low, pathetic chords were played, they stood still, panting, but not unpleased. At a sudden discord they sprang back, and shook their heads. Loud, quick music followed; but this failed to please, they stood further off, stamped, and shook their heads again, looking excited and defiant. But we had not come to play to the deer that day. The snakes and pythons were our object, the more so as we could play to these without interruption from the interested visitors, whose inconvenient attention our enterprise was beginning to attract.
“Behind the scenes” in the new Reptile House lies a most interesting region; and Orpheus has a prescriptive right of entry to the arcana of the serpent-world. We explained the object of our visit,—
“Cessit immanis mihi blandienti
Janitor aulæ!”
and we were most kindly taken to the private side of snake-land at the Zoo. There, if we may not “breakfast on basilisks’ eggs,” as in the land of Cleopatra’s asp, we may at least see the creature that does breakfast on basilisks’ eggs, the great monitor lizard, which eats the eggs of the crocodile—or of hens at the Zoo, where crocodiles’ eggs are scarce. There too we may see young basilisks, or crocodiles, frisking in a homely watering-pot; young rats too, by the score, parti-coloured and piebald, the destined food of serpents, but meantime in high spirits and playfully squeaking. It was the very place for a chamber concert to the cobras, for the thick plate-glass before the cages shuts out the sound of the curious crowd in front, while in the back of each compartment is a small square iron door, like those through which food is passed in model prisons to the inmates of the cells. This door, in the case of the poisonous snakes, is set high above the ground, and is reached by a set of steps which travels on a rail. It is therefore possible to observe the creatures’ movements while the player of the music is out of sight below.
Axis Deer Listening. From a photograph by Gambier Bolton.
The “dweller on the threshold” of the snakes’ home is the monitor lizard, an active and formidable saurian some 5 ft. in length, whose watchful habits were said to give warning of the approach of the crocodile. It did not belie its reputation for watchfulness, for the instant that it heard the sounds of the violin through its opened door, it raised its head, and stood alert and listening. Then the forked tongue came out and played incessantly round its lips; soft, slow music followed, and the lizard became quite still, except for a gentle swaying of the head from side to side. Two groups of black snakes from the Robben Islands next claimed our attention, and gave some evidence of the way in which the physical conditions of the moment affect the sensibilities of these creatures. In the first cage, they remained absolutely torpid, looking exactly as if carved out in polished ebony. In the next, the heads were raised at once, the forked tongues played, and at a sudden discord each snake’s head started violently back. Nor was this quick repulsion caused by any sudden movement of the bow, for the player was invisible. In the next cages to these were some small boas, and Madame Paulus’s pythons, with which that lady used to perform in a tank at the Royal Aquarium. The pythons showed no signs of interest, except by a quickened respiration; but a boa was at once attracted by the music. As it worked along the rounded rim of its circular bath in the direction of the sounds, it gave a beautiful exhibition of that snake-movement for which we have no name—neither crawling nor creeping, but gently enveloping portions of the surface on which it lay with its lower scales, and advancing noiselessly and almost imperceptibly. Arrived at the side of the bath nearest to the door, it extended its head with a kind of tremulous motion until it obtained a view of the violin. It remained for some minutes motionless, with its eye fixed upon the instrument, until the music became loud and strident. Then, in sinuous folds, it dropped like some viscous fluid to the ground, and slowly advanced to the door, from which it was gently put back by its keeper.
But the cobra is the snake to which all tradition points as most susceptible to musical sounds, and we prepared to watch its attitude towards the violin with no little excitement and curiosity. The accounts of Indian residents mainly agree in saying that the snake-charmer does influence these serpents by the monotonous notes of his little bagpipes; that as soon as the sound is heard, the snake rises, spreads its hood, and often waves its head from side to side in some sort of time to the music; and that, under these conditions, these venomous serpents may be handled with impunity. The last claim of the snake-charmer is perhaps over-bold. The snakes appear generally to have their fangs drawn. But in any case, opinion agrees that the sound of the pipes does attract and interest the cobra. Wild cobras are also induced by the pipe-player to come out from the holes in old wells or ruins in which they have taken up their residence, the snake being noosed when its body is sufficiently clear of the hole to enable it to be jerked away by the snake-charmer’s partner.
The behaviour of the cobras at the Zoo more than justified the Indian stories. We selected for our serenade a large yellow Indian cobra, which was lying coiled up asleep on the gravel at the bottom of its cage. At the first note of the violin, the snake instantly raised its head, and fixed its bright yellow eye with a set gaze on the little door at the back. The music then gradually became louder, and the snake raised itself in the traditional attitude on its tail, and spread its hood, slowly oscillating from one side to the other as the violin played waltz-time. There was a most strangely “interested” look in the cobra’s eye and attitude at this time, and the slightest change in the volume or character of the music was met by an instantaneous change in the movements or poise of the snake. At the tremolo, it puffed its body out. A rattlesnake in the next cage was also listening intently at the same time, with its head drawn back, and slowly rising and falling. But it was less apparently sensitive than the cobra. The violin suddenly reproduced the sound of the bagpipes, which greatly excited the snake; and as the “drone” was put on to the tune of “The Keel Row,” its hood expanded to its utmost dimensions. Soft minor chords were then played, and a sudden sharp discord struck without warning. The snake flinched whenever this was done, as if it had been struck, and this, it may be worth noting, was subsequently found to be a general effect of discords on most animals of a higher organization. The results of these further experiments were naturally more easy to detect and record than in the case of the snakes; but it may be taken as established, that at the Zoo there are serpents that are not yet deaf to the voice of the charmer, even if he lack the training of Eastern magicians.
ORPHEUS AT THE ZOO.
THE SECOND VISIT.
The result of the first experiments made upon animals with musical sounds, was such as to invite a second visit by the violin-player to the inmates of the Zoo. The sun was shining brightly, and most of the animals were just awaking from their morning sleep. Some were not yet awake. The two Polar bears were lying fast asleep in an affectionate embrace, their noses touching, and each with one paw laid on its companion’s side, while the other grasped its friend’s. Both were dreaming, like dogs on a hearth-rug, and gave slight starts and sounds from time to time and movements of their feet and paws. We seated ourselves on the balustrade of the bridge above, and serenaded the bears. The young one awoke at once, and slowly rolled over, stretched itself, and as the music increased in volume, came out into the main cage to listen. The violin was some ten feet above the level on which the bear was standing. In order to get nearer the sound, it stood up on its hind-legs, and listened intently. It then retired, and began to walk backwards and forwards, uttering some half-formed sound. But a fresh burst of music from the violin once more brought it to the front, where it stood up, and, spreading its arms wide on either side, pushed its muzzle between the bars. When the musician descended from the balcony and went close to the cage, the bear at once crossed to the place, and sat down to listen, occasionally putting its paws through the bars to try and reach the instrument. It was not until we had ceased to play for some time that the bear left its place against the bars, and sought refreshment in a morning tub. The two grizzly bears, at the first chord struck, assumed at once an air of the most comic and critical attention, each with its head on one side, and its paws clasping the bars. A sudden discord made both bears start back, and the lively tone of “The Keel Row” set them walking up and down the cage. In the Lion House, every head turned to the first sound of the violin; as the strains continued, the largest lion, to whom the music was more particularly addressed, began to wave the black tuft on its tail from side to side; and a lioness, which had been asleep in the inner cage, walked straight out towards the violin, and tried to push the lion from its “front seat.” But by this time so much public interest was awakened in our experiment that we were obliged to forego our concert to the lions, and seek an audience less subject to interruption. There is a German tale of a fiddler pursued by wolves who was saved by the accidental breaking of a string of his fiddle. The sound of the breaking string frightened the wolves for the moment, and afterwards, the legend adds, he kept them from pulling him from the roof of the hut on which he had taken refuge by playing continuously. The story of the breaking string frightening the wolves, so far agreed with our experience of the effect of sudden and sharp discords on various animals, that it was decided to make the experiment upon the wolves. The result went far to show that the old legend of their fear of music is based on fact. The common European wolf set up its back, and drew back its lips into a fixed and hideous sneer, showing all its teeth to the gums, with its tail between its legs. The Indian wolf showed signs of extreme and abject fear. It trembled violently, its fur was erected, and cowering down till its body almost touched the ground, it retreated to the furthest corner of the cage. When the music was played at the back of the cage, where the musician was invisible, its alarm was in no degree abated. It crept to the door to listen, and then sprang back and cowered against the bars in front of the cage, and so continued in alternate spasms of curiosity and fear. The jackals and some of the wilder foxes were only less alarmed than the wolves. The female jackals ran back to their inner den and hid themselves. The male erected its fur until it appeared as rough as an Esquimaux dog, and crept backwards and forwards, with its lips curled back, opening and shutting its mouth, growling whenever a strong discordant note was struck. The scene at this time was extremely amusing. The prairie wolves next door sat down to listen, the African jackals sat on a shelf and watched, and the performance was overlooked from a distance by a nervous but highly interested row of foxes of various sizes and colours, all sitting on the party-walls which divide their cages from the wolves and dingoes. It was like a picture from an illustrated edition of Æsop’s Fables. The foxes in the large cages came forward readily to listen to the music, though the usual experiment of striking a discord startled them greatly. But the rough fox from Demerara, in a small cage behind the building, was so violently alarmed that the keeper requested that the music might cease, for fear the creature should “have a fit,” to which ailment it appears that foxes and wolves are very subject. As might be expected, the sheep found pleasure in sounds which terrified the wolves. The burrhel, or wild sheep of the Himalayas, all came forward to listen, their ears pointed forward to catch the sounds. Some even stood up, and placing their fore-feet against the palings, stretched their necks in the direction of the music. Our violinist appropriately chose “The Shepherd’s Call” in William Tell, and this served to engage their intention more than “The Keel Row” or any more violent airs. Like almost all other creatures, they were startled at a discord. In the row of sheep-sheds, the music drew out all the inmates, the Markhor and the Cretan ibex coming forward to listen, and walking back to their food when the music stopped. The old Indian wild boar was an unexpected and appreciative convert to the charms of music. It was lying fast asleep in the sun, with its back towards the musician; but at the first chords it rose and faced round towards the player. After listening attentively, with ears forward, the boar began a series of complacent grunts, and advanced to the front of the pen, until disconcerted by a sharp discordant note, which drove it back several feet. The wild swine from Spain and Africa were also much interested in the music. For some unknown reason, the sounds which pleased the boars offended the African elephant. Setting up its huge, flapping ears, it flung up its trunk, snorted and whistled like a steam-engine, driving its head against the rails, and exhibiting every mark of anger and dislike. The Indian bison and the gayal both brought forward their broad ears to listen, and, resting their muzzles against the railings, seemed to enjoy the sounds; a sharp discord caused them to start back, and produced the same effect on the zebras and African wild ass, both of which listened to the harmonious chords with pleasure, and followed the musician from one side of their stall to another. But it was in the Monkey House that the music caused the greatest wonder and excitement. The large apes—two of which will never hear the violin again, for “Sally” and the young ourang-outang have both died since our visit—were more frightened than pleased. “Tim,” the silver gibbon, was much agitated, opening and shutting his mouth, and waving his long arms about, until two loud discordant notes were played, when he came flying down from his tree, and flung himself against the bars. The young ourang-outang turned his back at once, and made off to the top of his cage, from which not even a banana would tempt him. “Sally” listened gravely, with her hands crossed and a far-off look in her eyes, until a strong crescendo was played, when she made an audible and perfectly articulate remark, though we were unable to record its meaning. Outside the large monkey house, a large Tcheli monkey was sitting in a cage apart, thoughtfully chewing a stick. At the sound of the violin, it gave a violent start and frowned, which, however, is not a necessary sign of displeasure in monkey physiognomy. When sudden discords were played, it sprang forward and rattled the bars. The Capuchin monkeys, the species selected by Dr. Garnier for his experiments in monkey language, showed the strangest and most amusing excitement. These pretty little creatures have wonderfully expressive and intelligent pink faces, with bright-brown eyes and pink lips, and the play and mobility of their faces and bodies while listening to the music was extraordinarily rapid. The three in the first cage at first rushed up into their box, and then all peeped out chattering and excited. One by one they came down and listened to the music with intense curiosity, shrieking and making faces at a crescendo, shaking the wires at a discord, and putting their heads upside-down in efforts of acute criticism at low and musical passages. Every change of note was marked by some alteration of expression in the faces of the excited little monkeys, and a series of discordant notes roused them to a passion of rage. Most of the other monkeys came up to listen; the Malbrook monkey dropped the clay pipe he was making-believe to smoke, and the white-nosed monkey stole a lady’s veil and picked it thoughtfully to pieces. But a big baboon recently brought to the Gardens assumed a most comic look of disgust and surprise, and walked off to the utmost limits of its chain.
It is easier to give a record of such experiments than to speak with confidence of the feelings excited in our various listeners. Darwin, while giving many instances of the expression of anger, pain, and fear, gives few of the expression of pleasure, or the milder emotions of curiosity and contentment. It will not, however, be difficult to show that in many cases the animals at the Zoo did exhibit pleasure and curiosity in a very marked degree; while strange to say, in the case of others, anger or fear was shown in all the modes which Darwin has described. With the behaviour of the wolves we may compare his description of the characteristic expression of fear in carnivorous animals, by erecting the hair and uncovering the teeth and trembling. “Cattle and sheep,” says the great naturalist, “are remarkable for displaying their emotions in a very slight degree, except that of extreme pain.” But in the case of the wild sheep, and even of the wild cattle, the pleasure and curiosity aroused by the music was plainly shown, as we have described above, by their instant attention and their approach towards the sounds. At the sudden discords they instantly showed displeasure by stamping the feet and retiring. The African elephant gave unmistakable signs of anger; the wild boar and pigs, of pleasure and curiosity; and among others which shared these amiable emotions, were beyond doubt the zebras, wild asses, Polar and grizzly bears, and the ant-eater. No creature seemed wholly indifferent except the seals, and the sudden start and displeasure at a discord was almost universal, from the snakes to the African elephant. There are many men, perhaps many races of men, who could not detect a discord, and would be indifferent alike to harmony and its opposite. Must we not, then, infer that, owing to some greater sensitiveness of the organ, most animals have a musical ear, and that the stories of Orpheus and his lute have, at any rate, a basis in the facts of animal æsthetics?
ORPHEUS AT THE ZOO.
THE CHOICE OF INSTRUMENTS.
“Last came Joy’s ecstatic trial;
He with viny crown advancing,
First to the lively pipe his hand addrest;
But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol,
Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best.”
In a former trial of the effects of sweet sounds on animals’ ears at the Zoo, our Orpheus was so far in character that he played but one instrument; and though the violin did duty for the classic lute, the audience was in many cases as responsive as in the groves of Thessaly, when music still was young. Our object so attained, curiosity went no further, though if a matter-of-fact and scientific age demands “results” as a natural sequence to experiments, however playful, we would sum up the conclusions then reached as follows:—All animals, except the cobras and the wolves, showed pleasure and curiosity when listening to soft and melancholy music; and all exhibited extreme dislike of loud, harsh, discordant sounds. Minor keys in all cases seemed most appreciated, and in some animals, such as the mountain sheep, the bears, and the wolves, they produced the strangest results—in the first two of pleasure, in the last of fear. But though the violin-player is master of many sounds, and can even imitate the drone of the bagpipe, which the cobras so much enjoyed, it still remained to make trial of our hearers with other sounds than those of the tuneful strings. Animals, like the Passions, might have their favourite instrument, if only it could be found, and Orpheus, with his lute, could be matched against the shepherd’s pipe, or could watch the emotion of his animal admirers while melancholy “poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul.” Respect for the peaceful early hours at the Zoo induced us to forego, for the time, the trial of instruments of brass. But it was thought that the contrasts of the violin, the flute, and the shrill and piping piccolo, might afford some guide to animals’ taste in instrumental music, without injury either to their own nerves, or to the comfort of visitors to the Gardens. The hour chosen was the earliest which the rules for securing the animals’ comfort allowed; for the tests to be made were far more delicate than those by which we had proved the general susceptibility of animals to musical sound, and demanded the undivided attention of our captive hearers. The general order of our experiments, based upon the supposition that animal nerves are not unlike our own, was so arranged that their attention should be first arrested by a low and gradually-increasing volume of sound, in those melodious minor keys which experience showed them to prefer. The piccolo was then to follow, in shrill and high-pitched contrast. And, lastly, the mellow wood-notes of the flute were to soothe away whatever ruffled feelings the less tuneful piccolo had aroused. In case the creatures showed any marked preference for the flute over the violin, then the flute was to take precedence.
There is a curious attraction in watching these half-human appeals to animal emotion, and marking the quick look of interest and surprise visible in most of their faces, as the sweet sounds gradually steal on their senses, and the growth of pleasure—or fear—as the creature springs to its feet, and either advances eagerly to listen, or with bristling hair retreats to the farthest corner of the den, until perhaps pleasure or curiosity overcomes their terror at the unusual sounds. Pleasure or dislike are often most strongly shown where least expected, and the result of our last experiment goes to show that the tiger has stronger dislikes, if not stronger preferences, in the musical scale than the most intellectual anthropoid apes.
Our first visit was paid to “Jack,” the young red ourang-outang, which, since the death of “Sally,” the chimpanzee, claims the highest place in animal organization among the inmates of the Zoo. He is a six-months-old baby, of extremely grave and deliberate manners, and perhaps the most irresistibly comical creature which has ever been seen in London. He is extremely well-behaved, not in the least shy, and as friendly with strangers as with his keeper. His arms are as strong as those of a man, while his legs and feet seem to be used less for walking than as a subsidiary pair of arms and hands. He is thus able, when much interested, to hold his face between two hands, and to rest his chin on the third, which gives him an air of pondering reflection beyond any power of human imitation. “He knows there’s something up,” remarked his keeper, as we entered the house, and the ape came to the bars and sat down to inspect his visitors. As the sounds of the violin began, he suspended himself against the bars, and then, with one hand above his head, dropped the other to his side, and listened with grave attention. As the sound increased in volume, he dropped to the ground, and all the hair on his body stood up with fear. He then crept away on all fours, looking back over his shoulder like a frightened baby; and taking up his piece of carpet, which does duty for a shawl, shook it out, and threw it completely over his head and body, and drew it tight round him. After a short time, as the music continued, he gained courage and put out his head, and at last threw away the cloak and came forward again. By this time his hair was lying flat, and his fear had given place to pleasure. He sat down, and, chewing a straw, sat gravely listening to the music. “He looks just like our manager when a new piece is on,” remarked the violinist, as he concluded his share of the serenade. The piccolo at first frightened the monkey, but he soon held out his hand for the instrument, which he was allowed to examine. The flute did not interest him, but the bagpipes—reproduced on the violin—achieved a triumph. He first flattened his nose against the bars, and then, scrambling to the centre of the cage, turned head over heels, and lastly, sitting down, chucked handfuls of straw in the air and over his head, “smiling,” as the keeper said, with delight and approval.
Tiger Listening to Soft Music. From a photograph
by Gambier Bolton.
The Capuchin monkeys are kept in a large cage next to one containing a number of grey macaques. The little Capuchins were busy eating their breakfast; but the violin soon attracted an audience. The Capuchins dropped their food and clung to the bars, listening, with their heads on one side, with great attention. The keeper drew our notice to the next cage. There, clinging in rows to the front wires, was a silent assembly of a dozen macaques, all listening intently to the concert which their neighbours were enjoying. At the first sounds of the flute most of these ran away; and the piccolo excited loud and angry screams from all sides. Clearly in this case the violin was the favourite. We then decided to take the opinion of some of the largest and least vivacious animals, and selected the young African elephant for our next auditor. As this animal had shown the utmost dislike to the violin on a previous occasion, the flute was employed to open the concert, and with complete success. The elephant stood listening with deep attention, one foot raised from the ground, and its whole body still—a rare concession to the influence of music from one of the most restless of all animals. So long as the flute continued, it remained motionless and listening. But the change to the piccolo was resented. After the first bar, the elephant twisted round, and stood with its back to the performer, whistling and snorting and stamping its feet. The violin was less disliked, but the signs of disapproval were unmistakable. The deer, as before, were strangely attracted by the violin, and showed equal pleasure in the tones of the flute; the gemul deer, for instance, ran up at once to listen to the latter, their ears and tails being in constant movement at every change of tone or tune. Even the ostrich seemed to enjoy the violin and flute, though it showed marked signs of dislike at the piccolo, writhing its neck and walking uneasily up and down its enclosure. The ibexes were startled at the piccolo, first rushing forward to listen, and then taking refuge on a pile of rocks, from which, however, the softer music of the flute brought them down to listen at the railing. The wild asses and zebras left the hay with which their racks had just been filled; and even the tapir, which lives next door, got up to listen to the violin; while the flute set the Indian wild asses kicking with excitement. But the piccolo had no charms for any of them, and they all returned to their interrupted breakfasts. So far, the piccolo had shown its inability to please in most cases. Of its power to annoy we soon had an amusing proof. The Lion House was almost deserted by the few visitors who were in the Gardens, and the opportunity of making trial of the musical preferences of its inmates was too good to be lost. The violin-player approached a sleeping tiger, which was lying on its side with its feet stretched and touching the bars, and played so softly that the opening notes were scarcely audible. As the sound rose, the tiger awoke, and, raising its head without moving its body, looked for some time with fixed attention at the player. It remained for some time in a very fine attitude listening to the music, and then making the curious sound which, in tiger language, does duty for “purring,” it lay down again and dozed. The soft music still continued, as we were engaged in watching a cheetah, which showed great uneasiness and fear at the sounds, making sudden starts and bounds, raising the fur on its neck, and waving its tail from side to side like an angry cat. But whatever the cheetah’s emotions of dislike, the tiger did not share them, but lay half or wholly asleep, as if the chords which were being played made an agreeable lullaby. Judge, then, of our surprise, when, at the first notes of the piccolo, which succeeded the violin, the tiger sprang to its feet and rushed up and down the cage, shaking its head and ears, and lashing its tail from side to side. As the notes became still louder and more piercing, the tiger bounded across the den, reared on its hind feet, and exhibited the most ludicrous contrast to the calm dignity and repose with which it had listened to the violin. Then came the final and most successful experiment. The piccolo was stopped, and a very soft air played upon the flute. The difference in effect was seen at once. The tiger ceased to “rampage,” and the leaps subsided to a gentle walk, until the animal came to the bars, and, standing still and quiet once more, listened with pleasure to the music.
No doubt it is possible to draw very different conclusions from experiments of so imperfect a character as those which we have described. But it would probably be fair to infer that, for some cause, the violin and flute, which human taste has marked as among the most pleasing of musical instruments, are those most acceptable to animals under that unknown law which determines this branch of animal æsthetics.