408 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XVI. 



an usage which prevailed down to the time of Antigenides, the 

 musician, and while flute-playing was of a more simple style. 

 Being thus prepared, the reeds became fit for use in the course 

 of a few years. At that period even the reed required consi- 

 derable seasoning to render it pliable, and to be instructed, as 

 it were, in the proper modulation of its sounds ; the mouth- 

 piece and stops 44 being naturally contracted, and so producing 

 a music better adapted to the theatrical taste of the day. 

 But in later times, when the music became more varied, and 

 luxury began to exercise its influence upon the musical taste, 

 it became the general usage to cut the reeds before the summer 

 solstice, and to make them fit for use at the end of three 

 months; the stops and mouth-piece being found, when the 

 reeds were cut at that period, to be more open and better 

 adapted for the modifications of sound : it is in this state that 

 the reed is used for similar purposes at the present day. In 

 those times it was a very general persuasion also, that every 

 pipe ought to have the tongue of its own mouth-piece cut 

 from the same reed as itself, and that a section from the part 

 nearest the root was best adapted to form the left-handed 

 flute, 45 and from the part adjoining the top the right-handed 

 one : those reeds, too, were considered immeasurably superior, 

 which had been washed by the waters of Cephisus itself. 



At the present day the sacrificial pipes used by the Tuscans 

 are made of box-wood, while those employed at the games are 

 made of the lotus, 46 the bones of the ass, or else silver. The 

 fowler's reeds of the best quality are those of Panormus, 47 

 and the best reeds for fishing-rods come from A.barita in 

 Africa. 48 



CHAP. 67. THE VINE-DRESSERs' REED. 



The reed is employed in Italy more particularly, as a sup- 



44 Liugulis. 



45 The words "dextrte" and "sinistra," denote the treble and the bass 

 flutes; it is thought by some, because the former were held with the right 

 hand, and the latter with the left. Two treble or bass flutes were occasi- 

 onally played on at the same time. 



46 See B. xiii. c. 32. 



47 These were of the variety Zeugites, previously mentioned. 



*** Fee suggests, that what he mentions here may not have been a rce<2 

 at all, but one of the cyperaceous plants, the papyrus, perhaps. 



