The rabbits on the island of Sor, near Senegal, have white flesh, and are well tasted, but do not burrow in the earth, so that we may suspect their digging themselves houses in this cold climate is an acquired art, as well as their note of alarm, (Adanson’s Voyage to Senegal).

The barking of dogs is another curious note of alarm, and would seem to be an acquired language, rather than a natural sign:  for “in the island of Juan Fernandes, the dogs did not attempt to bark, till some European dogs were put among them, and then they gradually begun to imitate them, but in a strange manner at first, as if they were learning a thing that was not natural to them,” (Voyage to South America by Don G. Juan, and Don Ant. de Ulloa.  B. 2. c. 4).

Linnaeus also observes, that the dogs of South America do not bark at strangers, (Syst.  Nat.) And the European dogs, that have been carried to Guinea, are said in three or four generations to cease to bark, and only howl, like the dogs that are natives of that coast, (World Displayed, Vol.  XVII. p. 26.)

A circumstance not dissimilar to this, and equally curious, is mentioned by Kircherus, de Musurgia, in his Chapter de Lusciniis, “That the young nightingales, that are hatched under other birds, never sing till they are instructed by the company of other nightingales.”  And Jonston affirms, that the nightingales that visit Scotland, have not the same harmony as those of Italy, (Pennant’s Zoology, octavo, p. 255); which would lead us to suspect that the singing of birds, like human music, is an artificial language rather than a natural expression of passion.

X. Our music like our language, is perhaps entirely constituted of artificial tones, which by habit suggest certain agreeable passions.  For the same combination of notes and tones do not excite devotion, love, or poetic melancholy in a native of Indostan and of Europe.  And “the Highlander has the same warlike ideas annexed to the sound of a bagpipe (an instrument which an Englishman derides), as the Englishman has to that of a trumpet or fife,” (Dr. Brown’s Union of Poetry and Music, p. 58.) So “the music of the Turks is very different from the Italian, and the people of Fez and Morocco have again a different kind, which to us appears very rough and horrid, but is highly pleasing to them,” (L’Arte Armoniaca a Giorgio Antoniotto).  Hence we see why the Italian opera does not delight an untutored Englishman; and why those, who are unaccustomed to music, are more pleased with a tune, the second or third time they hear it, than the first.  For then the same melodious train of sounds excites the melancholy, they had learned from the song; or the same vivid combination of them recalls all the mirthful ideas of the dance and company.

Even the sounds, that were once disagreeable to us, may by habit be associated with other ideas, so as to become agreeable.  Father Lasitau, in his account of the Iroquois, says “the music and dance of those Americans, have something in them extremely barbarous, which at first disgusts.  We grow reconciled to them by degrees, and in the end partake of them with pleasure, the savages themselves are fond of them to distraction,” (Moeurs des Savages, Tom. ii.)