PREHISTORIC ART. 525 



uo opinion as to tlie ])robable nse of the tlutes. The chief value of his 

 report is in finding the instruments. This done, with their respective 

 strata and associations, they speak for themselves, and the inspector or 

 examiner is as well qualified to determine their function as is their 

 finder. His qualification is to be determined by his experience with 

 other or similar finds, and his ability to compare them with other 

 instruments. It is to be remarked that, while the first series mentioned 

 above by jManjuis de Xadaillac are from caverns niostly or possibly 

 Paleolithic, the remainder are i)robably Xeoli^hic, though this would 

 require closer examination and greater knowledge of the locality and 

 strata of their origin than is now possessed by the author. 



Furfoo/ is one of a number of prehistoric stations, many of which 

 are Paleolithic, near Namur and Dinant, on the head waters of the 

 Eiver Meusc. They are Justly celebrated by the excavations made 

 tlierein by M. E. Dupont, the finds from which form a large proportion 

 of the interesting display in the National Museum at Brussels. The 

 greater number of these stations were cav- 

 erns or shelters used by Paleolithic man. 

 The superimposed strata in these caverns 

 indicate with great certainty and satisfaction 

 the chronological as well as the cultural se- 

 quence of their occupation by man. In one 

 of these caverns, and in a stratum believed to 

 have been formed during the occupation by 

 Paleolithic man, was found the celebrated terracotta whistle, bird- 

 pottery vase, in fragments, which has been shaped, bronze age. 



restored and is displayed in the Brussels Mus- ^^^' cavern of Furfooz, .southern 



'■ •' Belgium. 



eum, and which has figured so extensively 



in the determination by prehistoric anthropologists that, while man did 

 not make or use pottery during the Paleolithic period in France, he 

 did in Belgium. In this station at Furfooz has been found, in what 

 stratum I am not able to say, nor even do I know jwsitively in which cav- 

 ern, but quoted from the Annals of the Societc Archa^ologique of ISTamur^ 

 as having been found ^'dans les bains voisins de laforteresse,'''' a whistle 

 of white clay, (en terre blanche) (fig. 1G7), in the form of a bird, the 

 mouthpiece of which was in the tail and the venthole in the belly, as 

 seen in the figure. Another whistle, said to have been found in the 

 phosphate beds at Mesvin near Mons, Belgium, and claimed to have 

 been paleolithic, is in the possession of M. Leon Somzee of Brussels. 



The question will immediately arise whether these were really musical 

 instruments. It has been suggested that they were for calls or signals 

 and may have been used, as the boatswain does his whistle, to direct 

 the movements of men at a distance. This would not be music, and if 

 they were always thus used they would not be musical instruments; 

 but if, on the other hand, they were used to give a rhythmical cadence 



1 Volume XIX, 1892, p. 360. 



