American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1872-08-24
Influence of Music Oh Animals.

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teresting essay regarding tic influence OF
music on animals. The writer shows
how various animals, and even insects,
are Influenced by a concord of sweet
sounds. We have noticed the same thing,
but thought nothing particular about il
until we stumbled on this article.
We remember now we have seen horses
influenced by music One of the most
enjoyable runaways we ever experienced
can be directly traced to the influence of
music on horse.
We were driving past where a band
was playing, and the music had more in
f1uence on the horse than we had. lie
didn't keep time, though. In fact, he
didn't keep anything, harness, buggy, or
anything else. He only kept running. l
never thought music could have such in
f1uence on a horse.
He beat time, too. That is to say, he
beat any time we ever saw him make be-
fore, even before sulky. We would
have kept that horse to run against time,
if he hadn't run against lamp-post and
ruined himself. Music influence horseg
Guess not,
Horses are excellent musical perform
ers themselves, sometimes. We have
known a hungry horse to go through all
the bars of an Oat-field correctly and
never miss an oat. although the owner of
the oats missed all of his.
Dogs are singularly affected by music.
We whistled after strange dog once, we
remember. The dog stopped, listened at
tentively, looked moment sad, as
though the notes awoke some tender
memories within him, and then came
bounding toward us and embraced the
calf of our leg in the most affectionate
manner. He could hardly tear himself
away, and wouldn't if his owner hadn't
come and choked him off.
There is power of music in tin kettle
when properly brought out. We saw one
brought out the other day by some boys
about the influence of music on animals.
We never saw dog so moved in all our
life
Cats are strangely influenced by the
music of a violin. 1t seems to affect their
entire system. In fact, there could be no
violins without doing violins to the cats.
Even a very young kitten, who don't real
lze what he has got to come to, news
plaintively when fiddle-bow is drawn
across the strings. 1t seems to vibrate a
sympathetic chord within his own abdom-
inal Enclosure. 1t is affecting, the news
of young kitten, or to see young kit
ten muse
Birds, never brought up on music at all,
are brought down by the music of a shot
gun. Many of the wild animals are
charmed with music. We often hear
music that nothing but wild animal
arould be charmed with.
The Tyrolians enticea party of stays
by singing, merely; and the Tyrolian
warbler of a concert saloon merely en-
tees ''stag" party. The female deer is
allured by playing the flute. We had
female dear once whom we attempted to
allure with flute, but the dear female
said she was accustomed to doing her
own ''fluting." So we just let her flute.
The elephant, huge as he is, has won
derful ear for music. One of his ears
would make a bass drum head. He is
fond of march, if he don't have to
march too far. He is also partial to a
gallOp, if it is a gall up on his back We
saw a music teacher fooling with an ele-
plant once. The elephant picked his
pocket and marched off with whole
trunk full of sheet music.
Among insects the spider is found to be
very fond of music. His favorite vocal
lists are the Webb sisters His favorite
fly, to my bowerr' 1t is
a right bower, and we pity any fly that
comes there.-Fat COntr55utor's SATURDAY
Night