COWS PREFER MOZART

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 96, 26 April 1939, Page 13

COWS PREFER MOZART

the Zoo in London Dr. Huxley has recorded the sounds emitted by his .wards. These little records, which are sold at the Zoo’s novelty stand for four pence a piece, have achieved great popularity with the public. All this is well known, state* L’Oeuvre, Paris. What is not so well known is that most animals produce sounds that we are unable to hear just as the bees see things to which we are blind. The recordings of Dr. Huxley, moreover, have met with the unqualified appreciation of the animals themselves. A young camel hearing the voice of its mother starts searching for her in the apparatus itself. All in all, this is scarcely surprising since the most erudite scientists did just the same thing when confronted for the first time with Edison’s invention. Among his other observations Dr. Huxley has noticed that crabs whistle, purr and growl, depending on the occasion. and that the song of a certain toad in the U.S.A. comprises notes comparable to the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven. These facts are very apropos in the light of the announcement that has appeared in connection with the coming Cattle Show in London. The visitors are informed that the musical programme at the show will not be arranged for their pleasure but for that of the animals themselves. The excitement that the animals are subjected to causes them to lose weight. After extensive investigation the management has reached the conclusion that music is the only effective way of combating this. Do not think for a moment that dairymaids are given to singing at their

work for no good reason at all. They sing in order to please the cows. Contented cows give more milk. Some farmers have already installed radios in their barns “because th* atmosphere of good cheer is conduciv* to greater production of milk.” The music at the Cattle Show will, therefore, be carefully selected. Beethoven is to be rigorously excluded —and that goes for his imitator, th* American toad that we spoke of. Even the Pastoral Symphony brings about th* most deplorable results. Modern music? Not on your life! Jazz leave* cows in a state of disgust. Bach is too flippant for them. As for Wagner th* milk curdles at the first sounds of hia music. Mozart, on the other hand, is very favourably received. Haydn also. Th* favourite selection of the beeves appears to be a piece by Belius called “On Listening to the First Cuckoo in the Spring.” Apparently it remind* the cows of their youth. In the absence of music written specifically for cows, the Cattle Show Committee will have to get by with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Cows from the Highlangs appear overjoyed when they hear the notes of the bagpipes. But the director of th* Cattle Show advises against the use of these instruments except with th* greatest circumspection. They hav* a positively alarming effect on animal* who do not come from the land of th* heather. Frenchmen will understand this without any difficulty. The English hav* long ago explained that it was th* bagpipes that prevented all the Normans from crossing over to England at the time of the invasion.