HANDBOOK OF THE COLLECTION OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS 91 



ing of the melody strings is accomplished by means of five tuning 

 pegs at the end and two on the side of the neck. 



An instrument called a rudra vina (92691, pi. 39c) as a resonator 

 carved from a block of wood, gourd shaped, but ribbed or fluted. 

 The belly of parchment is glued in place. This form of vina is a 

 favorite in Persia and the northern provinces of India. 



INSTRUMENTS WITH OPEN STRINGS, HAMMERED 



The principal ^representative of this group is the dulcimer. Con- 

 sideration is here given to the psaltery, however, because of a re- 

 semblance between the psaltery and dulcimer, and because both were 

 ancestors of the keyboard group. The psaltery, as will be noted, 

 was a predecessor of the spinet, and the dulcimer led naturally to 

 the hammerclavier, or pianoforte. 



The psaltery is an instrument of great antiquity. " It is fre- 

 quently mentioned in the Bible together with the harp, though it. 

 seems to have been used less than the latter." The psaltery is also 

 mentioned by Chaucer and the English and French romanticists. 

 The strings of a psaltery are stretched over a sounding board and 

 only a short distance above it. The instruments formerly in use were 

 trapeze shaped ; they differ from the dulcimer only in the manner of 

 being played, the strings of the psaltery being picked and those of 

 the dulcimer being struck with hammers. 



An excellent example of the psaltery is 95180 (pi. 40c), an Egyp- 

 tian instrument. It has 72 strings of camel gut, colored black. 

 They are arranged in groups of three, the group being tuned to one 

 pitch, as in the piano. With the instrument is a pair of plectra, 

 each consisting of a metal band and a whalebone pick. No. 95181 

 is similar except that it has 78 strings. Like the former, it is tuned 

 to the diatonic scale with the Cs and Fs sharped. 



A Turkish instrument closely resembling this is 93880. A Finnish 

 psaltery (95691) has its top projecting in the form of a scroll. 



The Chinese orchestral instruments collected by John B. Hender- 

 son have already been mentioned. Among these is a Chinese psaltery 

 (94847) which is 78 inches long and has 25 silk strings tuned in 

 pairs. Under each string is a movable bridge like that of a koto. 

 Another Chinese psaltery (54024, pi. 33a) is shorter, has one fixed 

 bridge, and is strung with 16 brass wires of graduated lengths. It 

 was received in 1876 as a gift from the Chinese Imperial Centennial 

 Committee. With this is pictured a Korean stringed instrument 

 (95207, pi. 33&) with 6 strings, 3 of which pass over fixed frets, 

 while the other 3 have each a movable bridge like that of a koto. 



A curious instrument (95726), probably from Madagascar, was 

 collected in 1893. It consists of a section of bamboo with seven 



