The Effects of Music on Animals.
A Pigeon Was One of Mozart’s Most Appreciative Auditors—Cats, Mice, and Cows Have Performed Queer Antics When Under the Influence of Strains from Violins and Pianos.
The power of music is growing to be recognized by physicians in the treatment of certain diseases. Its effect upon animals is very marked, sometimes for good and in other instances for quite the opposite, though it is not always easy to know just which is the case.
A writer in Harper’s Magazine half a century ago gave some results of personal observation of animals under the influence of music. These observations are interesting and amusing, and would seem to show beyond a doubt that animals may be quite as fond of sweet sounds as man.
The sensibility of animals to music will hardly be questioned in the present day, when the manners and habits of all animated nature are so thoroughly observed and studied.
We no longer doubt the dictum of the poet, who sings, “Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast”; and, therefore, it is not so much in corroboration of his assertion, as in illustration of a fact so interesting and pleasing in itself, that we are about to bring to the notice of the reader some few instances of animal love of music which are too well authenticated to admit of a doubt, and some of which are the records of our personal observation and experience.