A Musical Pheasant In a lively report appearing in the
yearly record of the Norfolk Naturalists' Trust, Major Anthony Buxton describes the obvious pleasure taken by one of his pheasants in the playing of the piano, and the question arises: Have birds, and indeed mammals, an ear for music? Noises, if not music, certainly stimulate them. While sawing a fallen trunk the other day I noticed that whenever the saw squeaked, immediately both a thrush and a robin began to sing. Aeroplanes overhead promote song only less surely than the 'cello the nightingale ; and it is a common- place that birds imitate one another's songs. The minah and other noted imitators can whistle a tune. As to other animals, I know one donkey that had a passion for the penny whistle, and would gallop up to the gate to come as near as possible TO 3 hurdy-gurdy! 'Dogs certainly notice the difference of tunes. One terrier among my neighbours howls like a dervish at the sound of one particular tune, whether from pain or pleasure who shall say? As to birds, it is remarkable that none of them, with the exception of the cuckoo, sings what we should call a true interval.
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