1880.), who has written on and is much interested in the origin of the
taste for music. In reading your essay, it occurred to me that facility in
the utterance of prolonged sounds (I do not think that you allude to this
point) may possibly come into play in rendering them musical; for I have
heard it stated that those who vary their voices much, and use cadences in
long continued speaking, feel less fatigued than those who speak on the
same note.


LETTER 420. TO G.J. ROMANES.
Down, February 5th, 1880.

(420/1. Romanes was at work on what ultimately came to be a book on animal
intelligence. Romanes's reply to this letter is given in his "Life," page
95. The table referred to is published as a frontispiece to his "Mental
Evolution in Animals," 1885.)

As I feared, I cannot be of the least use to you. I could not venture to
say anything about babies without reading my Expression book and paper on
Infants, or about animals without reading the "Descent of Man" and
referring to my notes; and it is a great wrench to my mind to change from
one subject to another.

I will, however, hazard one or two remarks. Firstly, I should have thought
that the word "love" (not sexual passion), as shown very low in the scale,
to offspring and apparently to comrades, ought to have come in more
prominently in your table than appears to be the case. Secondly, if you
give any instance of the appreciation of different stimulants by plants,
there is a much better case than that given by you--namely, that of the
glands of Drosera, which can be touched roughly two or three times and do