Through the emotions we are apt to judge ourselves somewhat superior to
the animal creation, though perhaps a more thorough study and interest
in the “smiles and tears” of the so-called creatures of lesser
intelligence would teach us that the emotions play almost as important
and distinctive a part in their organism as in our own oversensitive
nerve force. I am not speaking of the emotion of fear and anger that is
instinctive in all animals, but of the more subtle emotions of joy and
grief as visibly expressed. The older epic writers made much of the
grief expressed by horses, and their sorrows have formed many an heroic
verse. Merrick, in his “Tryphiodorus,” says:
He stands, and careless of his golden grain,
Weeps his associates and his master slain.
Says Moschus:
Nothing is heard upon the mountains now
But pensive herds that for their master low,
Struggling and comfortless about they rove,
Unmindful of their pasture and their love.
Virgil, who was probably more conversant with the horse and his
interests than almost any other writer of that faraway period, thus
writes of the sorrow of Pallas’ steed:
To close the pomp, Aethon, the steed of state,
Is led, the funeral of his lord to wait;
Stripp’d of his trappings, with a sullen pace
He walks, and the big tears run rolling down his face.
In the Iliad, Homer thus renders the emotion of Patroclus’ war horses
evinced for that hero:
Restive they stood, and obstinate in woe:
Still as a tombstone, never to be moved
On some good man or woman unreproved
Lays its eternal weight; or fix’d, as stands
A marble courser by the sculptor’s hands.
Placed on the hero’s grave. Along their face
The big round drops coursed down with silent pace,
Conglobing with the dust. Their manes, that late
Circled their arched necks, and waved in state,
Trail’d on the dust beneath the yoke were spread,
And prone to earth was hung their languid head.
Shakespeare, in “As You Like It,” tells of the tears shed by a wounded
stag:
The wretched animal heav’d forth such groans,
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting; and the big round tears
Cours’d one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase.
All, or nearly all, animals are sensitive to music, which affects them
in various ways, and again it is Shakespeare who refers to this
sensitiveness in even untrained horses, proving its effect to be
instinctive:
For do but note a wild and wanton herd
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,
Fetching mad? bounds, bellowing, and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood
If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eye turned to a modest gaze
By the sweet power of music.
There is an ancient account of the Libyan mares to whom it was necessary
to discourse sweet music in order to tame them sufficiently to be
milked, and the horses of the Sybarites, who have been taught to dance
to certain strains of music, inopportunely heard the same strains of
music on their way to battle and very much chagrined their masters by
stopping to dance instead of going forward to fight, such was the
influence of the familiar tune. De Vere gives an account of a certain
Lord Holland who was very eccentric, and used during the time of William
III to give his horses weekly concerts in a covered gallery specially
erected for the purpose. He maintained that it cheered their hearts and
improved their temper, and an eye witness says that they seemed to be
greatly delighted with the performance. Not at all a bad suggestion for
owners of those horses who do not “come up to time” at the present day.
A few years ago, according to the “American Naturalist,” experiments
were made in Lincoln Park, Chicago, to determine with scientific
accuracy the effect of violin playing on different animals. It says:
“Music which was slow and sweet, like ‘Home, Sweet Home,’ or ‘Annie
Laurie,’ pleased the panthers, a jaguar and a lioness and her cubs. The
panthers became nervous and twitched their tails when a lively jig, ‘The
Irish Washerwoman,’ was played to them, and relapsed into their former
quiet when the music again became soothing.
“The jaguar was so nervous during the jig music that he jumped from a
shelf to the floor of his cage and back again. When the player ceased
playing and walked away the jaguar reached out his paw to him as far as
he could. His claws were drawn back.
“The lioness and her cubs were interested from the first, though when
the violinist approached the cage the mother gave him a hiss and the
cubs hid behind her. At the playing of a lively jig the cubs stood up on
their hind legs and peeped over at the player. When the musician
retreated from the cage the animals came to the front of it and did not
move back when he gradually drew so near as almost to touch the great
paws that were thrust through the bars. When playing ‘Home, Sweet Home,’
the entire family seemed very attentive, and were motionless except that
the cubs turned their heads from side to side. Then another jig was
played and the cubs danced about.
“The coyotes, in a den, squatted in a semi-circle and sat silently while
the music continued. When it ceased they ran up and pawed at the player
through the bars. He began afresh, and they again formed in a silent
semi-circle. This experiment was tried several times with the same
results.”
Many of us are familiar with the story of the man who was chased by
wolves and who climbed to the rafters of an old cabin out of reach of
the vicious fangs, but who fortunately carried with him an old violin,
and through its means he was able to hold the wolves in thrall the night
through by his music until the last string of the violin snapped and the
brutes prepared to make an onslaught, but at that moment the first
gleams of the coming day appeared and the wolves forsook their prey and
disappeared.
Much has been written of the effect of music upon elephants and their
tempers. Gentle strains have moved them to caresses, and martial music
arouses them to a sort of fury. It has been written that the Arab, than
whom there is no truer lover of the animal creation, entertains his
camel with music, songs and fairy tales. When the animal lags in its
long swinging trot, the Bedouin draws his reed-pipe from the folds of
his turban and sharp and shrill its notes are heard far across the dusky
sands, and the weary camel, encouraged by its notes, moves on again with
enlivened motion.
It has often been noticed how quickly a cow will distinguish a new bell,
and how great a disturbance is created in the whole herd, who will often
take it upon themselves to chastise the unwary wearer. De Vere is an
authority for the fact that the leader of a herd of cows when deprived
of her beloved bell will weep bitter tears, and says that there are many
instances of cows that have died when deprived of their harmonious
ornament.
That mice have a musical ear and taste is a well known fact, but the
lowest type of animal that is visibly affected by a strain of music is
the turtle. Readers of that sensational tale, “The Household of
Bouverie,” will remember the history of the small tortoise “Merodach”
whom his master could summon at will by playing a certain air on an old
lyre, a tale that was said to be founded on fact.
Alberta A. Field.
[Illustration: DOMESTIC COW.
(Bos taurus.)
ADAPTED FROM A PAINTING BY JAMES M. HART.]