Chapter 18 - Page 2

enlargement of his vocal organs would be intelligible on the principle of sexual selection, together with inheritance limited to the same sex and season; but we have no evidence in favour of this view. As the case stands, the loud voice of the stag during the breeding-season does not seem to be of any special service to him, either during his courtship or battles, or in any other way. But may we not believe that the frequent use of the voice, under the strong excitement of love, jealousy, and rage, continued during many generations, may at last have produced an inherited effect on the vocal organs of the stag, as well as of other male animals;, This appears to me, in our present state of knowledge, the most probable view.

* See, for instance, Major W. Ross King (The Sportsman in Canada, 1866, pp. 53, 131) on the habits of the moose and wild reindeer.

The voice of the adult male gorilla is tremendous, and he is furnished with a laryngeal sack, as is the adult male orang.* The gibbons rank among the noisiest of monkeys, and the Sumatra species (Hylobates syndactylus) is also furnished with an air sack; but Mr. Blyth, who has had opportunities for observation, does not believe that the male is noisier than the female. Hence, these latter monkeys probably use their voices as a mutual call; and this is certainly the case with some quadrupeds, for instance the beaver.*(2) Another gibbon, the H. agilis, is remarkable, from having the power of giving a complete and correct octave of musical notes,*(3) which we may reasonably suspect serves as a sexual charm; but I shall have to recur to this subject in the next chapter. The vocal organs of the American Mycetes caraya are one-third larger in the male than in the female, and are wonderfully powerful. These monkeys in warm weather make the forests resound at morning and evening with their overwhelming voices. The males begin the dreadful concert, and often continue it during many hours, the females sometimes joining in with their less powerful voices. An excellent observer, Rengger,*(4) could not perceive that they were excited to begin by any special cause; he thinks that, like many birds, they delight in their own music, and try to excel each other. Whether most of the foregoing monkeys have acquired their powerful voices in order to beat their rivals and charm the females- or whether the vocal organs have been strengthened and enlarged through the inherited effects of long-continued use without any particular good being thus gained- I will not pretend to say; but the former view, at least in the case of the Hylobates agilis, seems the most probable.

* Owen Anatomy of Vertebrates, vol. iii., p. 600. *(2) Mr. Green, in Journal of Linnean Society, vol. x., Zoology, 1869, note 362. *(3) C. L. Martin, General Introduction to the Natural History of Mamm. Animals, 1841, p. 431. *(4) Naturgeschichte der Saugethiere von Paraguay, 1830, ss. 15, 21.

I may here mention two very