406 pltnt's natural HISTORY. [Book XVI. 



chornenus has a passage in it open from one end to the other, 

 and is known as the auleticon ; 29 this last is best for making 

 pipes, 30 the former 31 for the syrinx. There is another reed, 

 the wood of which is thicker, and the passage very con- 

 tracted, being entirely filled with a spongy kind of pith. _ One 

 kind, again, is shorter, and another longer, the one thinner, 

 the other more thick. That known as the donax, throws out 

 the most shoots, and grows only in watery localities ; in- 

 deed, this is a point which constitutes a very considerable 

 difference, those reeds being greatly preferred which grow 

 in a dry soil. The archer's reed forms a peculiar species, as 

 we have already stated; 32 but that of Crete 33 has the longest 

 intervals between the joints, and when subjected to heat is 

 capable of being rendered perfectly pliable 34 at pleasure. The 

 leaves, too, constitute different varieties, not onty by their 

 number, but their colour also. The reed of Laconia is spot- 

 ted, 35 and throws out a greater number of shoots at the lower 

 extremities; being very similar in nature, it is thought, to 

 the reeds that we find growing about stagnant waters, and 

 unlike those of the rivers, in being covered with leaves of 

 considerable length ; which, climbing upwards, embrace the 

 stem to a considerable distance above the joints. There is 

 also an obliquely-spreading reed, which does not shoot up- 

 wards to any height, but spreads out like a shrub, keeping 

 close to the earth ; this reed is much sought by animals when 

 young, and is known by some persons as the elegia. 36 There 

 is in Italy, too, a substance found in the marsh-reeds, called 

 by the name of adarca : 37 it is only to be found issuing from the 

 cuter skin, below the flossy head of the plant, and is particularly 



29 Or the pipe-reed. 



30 The tibia, or pipe, was played lengthwise, like the flageolet or 

 clarionet. 



31 A variety of the Arundo donax. The Orchomenian reed is of the 

 same class. The fistula was played sideways ; and seems to have been a 

 name given both to the Syrinx or the Pandsean pipes, and the flute, 

 properly so called. 



3a In the last Chapter. The Arundo donax, probably, so far as Euro- 

 pean warfare was concerned. 



33 A variety of the Arundo donax of Linncous. 



34 This is not the fact. 35 The Arundo versicolor of Miller. 

 36 Constantinus and Schneider, upon Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. B. iv. 



c. 11, suspect the correctness of this word. 

 » See B. xx. c. 88, and B. xxxii. c. 52. 



