Musical Taste of Monkeys.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVI, Issue XXII, 1 June 1901, Page 1016

Musical Taste of Monkeys.

Now that Professor Garner is instructing us in the language of monkeys. it becomes a matter of family interest, as it were, to note any peculiarities of development in the animals from which the evolutionist* maintain that the human race descended, or. more properly speaking, ascended. It may be classed with the study of genealogy. The author of “Studies in Corsica" touches on monkey music in speaking of the bagpipe. „ , . The well-known boast of patriotic Scotchmen that the bagpipe is sacred to Scotland, and speaking a language which only Scotchmen feel, is as slight in foundation as it is dubious in import. In Syria, in Persia, in Afghanistan and India; in fact, throughout the south of both Europe and Asia, the bagpipe is known and is enthusiastically cultivated.

In India, if I may believe some soldier friends, the pipes attached to the Highland regiments are far more enjoyed by the native population limn the best brass bands of oilier battalions.

Nay, so much akin to our original nature is the dulcet music of the simple l>agpi|ie that it is the one sort of music which stirs the monkeys. For. according to the testimony of the same officers, the Indian monkeys, although unmoved by bands, are so powerfully fascinated by the Scottish pibroch that when a detachment of Highlanders is inarching to the pipes, and when the roadway traversed is lined with trees, the monkeys will follow the troops with signs of delight, scrambling after* them from tree to tree. From facts such as these one cannot doubt that the. Imgpipe is one of our oldest instruments.