ARE ANOULS MUSICAL?

Otago Witness, Issue 1947, 18 June 1891, Page 35

ARE ANOULS MUSICAL?

Decidedly they are, answers Mr Frederick Whymper, who contributes an interesting paper ©n the question to the Animal's Guardian for April.

The keeper of a menagerie was once asked whether the band had any effect on the animals.

"To be sure it does," said he ; " they like it, and therefore it does them good. If you were to come in and look at them in a morning, when the band is away perambulating the town, you would see many of them, tbe more savage beasts In particular, dull and f moping, and either sitting or lying in their dens. We who travel with wild beasts cannot of course give them the room they ought to have ; and, being cribbed up in show-boxes, they degenerate for want of exercise, do what we will with them. But it would be very much worse, I reckon, if it were not for the music. When they -heSr the band strike up they rouse themselves, and begin taking what exercise .they can ; the beasts of prey by walking backwards forwards, and the others by repeating the movements natural to them when at liberty ; the birds will begin to chaffer' and plume themselves at the sound ; and even the snakes at times will uncoil and rear up, and convince the people, who sometimes seem to doubt the fact, that they "aie living creatures."

Dogs, as is yell known, are often taught to dance to violin, pipe, or drum; and even to grind barrel oigans. In the latter case they very properly look extremely serious. But a judicious dog finds the harmonium " even more trying.

A writer records the case of a dog— across., between a Scotch and a Skye terrier— wfto", : would come close to a harmonium ancTevf- N dently enjoy the music, up to a certain point. Bat when a shrill note came from that instrument of torture, he wculd point his nose in the air at an angle of about 40 degrees, and, stiffening Ms body in a straight

line from the nostrils to the tail, emit the same note, in a manner which indioated his displeasure, and sustain it as long as did the performer. That artist generally in fact gave way first. Another dog did excellent service, it seems, in this fashion : —

A friend of the writer's, whose vooal efforts were not calculated to inspire any speoial respect for either his abilities or eduoation, had an old: dog, quiet, sedate, and sleepy, which could be roused to something approaching fury when his master's performances commenced in its presence. The expression " commenced " is used advisedly, for those songs 'were never finished, and indeed rarely got beyond the bar raised against the bars of the executant by ' the dismal howling of that intelligent quadruped. For "executant" read "murderer." The family had an intense regard for that dog.

Cats, we are told, have little natural liking for music, but the taste can be acquired : —

A certain pet oat, though as a kitten indifferent to music, grew to like it, and regularly led the way to the piano when tea was over. Here she took post on a chair, and listened gravely during the whole performance. When it ceased she would go to sleep, though not if the instrument were left open, in which case puss instantly leaped on the keys and pawed a perfoimance of her own, in which she showed " an extreme partiality for the treble notes, and something like alarm at the lower bass ones when she happened to give them an extra vigorous kick.

Mice, on the contrary, are " intensely fond of music." So of course are cows, as the literature of the " Ranz dcs Vaches " is enough to remind us. But the English cow is especially fond, it seems, of the guitar : — On the boating trip of seven or eight amateur musicians, one of them specially noticed a specially musical cow. This creature, a small sream-coloured Alderney, suckled her calf, along with 12 other vaccine mothers, in a meadow which sloped down to the river's brink. "Whenever," says the historian of this trip, " we turned the bend of the river, with our voices in tune as our oars kept time, and the meadow came in sight, there we were sure to see the white cow, standing up to the shoulders in the water, whither she had advance! to meet us, her neck stretched out, and her dripping nose turned towards the boat. As we skirted the meadow she kept pace with us on the bank, testifying her delight by antics of which no cow in her senses Would have been thought capable. She would,leap, skip, roll on her back, rear on her hind .leg 3, then hurl them aloft in the air, like a kicking horse, now rushing into the water to look at us nearer, now frisking off like a kitten at play. . . . After these mad gambols she always returned to her calf, first saluting us with a long plaintive kind of bellow, by way of farewell." Verily, an appreciative cow!

Mr Whymper's last anecdote, communicated to him by a friend, concerns a bird that no one would expect to show musical taste : —

At an old farmhouse in Wiltshire, geese were kept in the orchard, and the gander would frequently enter the kitchen, the door of which was usually open in the summer time. The old bird was a general pet, and took advantage of the fact. One day the farmer's sister was playing on the piano in a room near the kitchen, when she felt something touch her, and looking down discovered Master Gandet with his head resting qn her knee, listening with great attention, when the music ceased he stretched his wings, gave a quiet cackle, and walked off; but the play recommencing} Tom— for that was his name — returned to his old position by the piano, nor conld he be persuaded to leave till the mu3ic ceased. From that time, whenever there was music in - the house, the gander would do his best to be one of the company. It was not supposed, that he had a preference for any particular tune, but he took no notice whatever of the village brass band, which numbered among its instruments a drum of large size, beaten by a very powerful miller. —Pall Mall Gazette.