MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS, AUTOMATIC. 



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her a choice from nearly four hundred se- 

 lections. 



The Cuckoo Clock. This is a child of the Black 

 Forest, produced in the latter part of last cent- 

 ury. It is a little clock in which at the time of 

 striking the hours and half -hours, and sometimes 

 the quarters, a door opens, the figure of a bird 

 appears, opens his wings, repeats the notes of 

 a cuckoo's call as many times as required for 

 counting the requisite hour, and disappears. 

 The mechanism consists of two small pipes, 

 generally of wood, one on either side of the 

 interior clock-works. One pipe is slightly 

 longer than the other, thus making the differ- 

 ence in tone. Connected with each is a tiny 

 bellows. When the stroke is to be given, a 

 little wire apparatus suddenly opens the door, 

 pushes out the bird, and at the same time lifts 

 its wings and fills both of the bellows. The 

 pipe of the higher note is then sounded first, 

 immediately followed by the second, thus giv- 

 ing two distinct notes without blending. There 

 is. just enough air in the bellows to give the re- 

 quired notes, and, when they are given, all is 

 silent until it is time for the stroke of the next 

 hour. A very pretty conceit is indulged in 

 sometimes by having a quail and cuckoo both. 

 At the hoar-stroke, the quail appears and 

 sounds four calls. Immediately on his disap- 

 pearance, the cuckoo steps out on his balcony 

 and in his usual manner gives the hour. He 

 does not appear except at the beginning of 

 the hour. The quail, with greater interest in the 

 fleeting moments, calls out the first quarter by 

 one cry, the second quarter by two, and the third 

 by three. In the mechanism each bird has its 

 own sound tubes or pipes, and each acts inde- 

 pendently of the other. 



Bird-Organs. These are small boxes with a 

 limited number of pipes played by a cylin- 

 der set with pins after the manner of a music- 

 box. They play but one note at a time, and 

 are specially designed for the teaching of cana- 

 ries, bullfinches, etc. They, too, had their birth 

 in the Black Forest. The pipes are of wood, 

 and the cylinders are set with tunes especially 

 suited to the bird to be taught. 



The Singing-Bird. Maillardet invented this. 

 He produced a box about three inches long. 

 ; When it was put upon a table the lid flew up, 

 and a humming-bird of beautiful plumage start- 

 ed from its nest, fluttered its wings, poised it- 

 self, opened its bill, and delighted its hearers 

 , with four different kinds of most beautiful 

 warbling. It then darted down into its nest, 

 and the lid closed. The moving power was 

 s springs, and the duration of the action was 

 four minutes. 



The Mechanical Flute. Tn 1736 Vaucanson ex- 



\ hibited before the French savants the figure of 



j a man five and a half feet high. It stood on a 



\ pedestal four and a half by three and a half 



' feet top-surface. The figure put the flute to 



his lips, puckered them, felt of the flute-hole 



with his tongue, and played with his fingers in 



precisely the same manner as a human being. 



The audience was puzzled, and became suspi- 

 cious, especially as the music was of a very high 

 order. That a living performer was concealed 

 was the universal belief until an examination 

 and explanation was given. When it became 

 apparent that the rich tones of the flute play- 

 ing difficult airs were the result of mechanical 

 action only, the lookers-on became enthusias- 

 tic over the ingenuity displayed. There were 

 nine pairs of bellows blown in succession by 

 the rotation of a steel shaft. This in turn was 

 driven by clock-work. Three tubes passed up- 

 ward through the body and terminated in res- 

 ervoirs in the trunk ; the tongue was movable, 

 and acted as a valve ; the motions of the fin- 

 gers, lips, and tongue were produced by means 

 of a revolving cylinder. There were* fifteen 

 levers operating on the barrel-organ principle. 

 Of these, seven controlled the fingers; three 

 were for soft and swell tones ; one for open- 

 ing the lips and one for closing them ; one 

 pushed the lips forward and one drew them 

 back, while one pushed the tongue out and 

 stopped the flute. Its list of tunes was limit- 

 ed, but the playing was equal to that of high- 

 grade performers. This was followed in 1741 

 by Vaucanson's 



Flageolet-Player, which was of similar construc- 

 tion, with the addition of a tambourine. One 

 hand was devoted to each instrument. The 

 player was dressed like a dancing shepherd, 

 and his repertoire of music embraced about 

 twenty airs. The flageolet had but three holes, 

 and when it is remembered that the human 

 tongue is not capable of giving the requisite 

 articulation to a rapid succession of notes, but 

 generally slurs over one half of them, the inge- 

 nuity displayed in the construction of the in- 

 strument will be acknowledged when it is 

 learned that it played the most difficult airs 

 with the perfect articulation of the tongue at 

 every note. The music was superior, and Vau- 

 canson became celebrated as a mechanician. 



The Trumpeter was the handy-work of Malzel. 

 It was the figure of a soldier gorgeously ar- 

 rayed, and playing a number of French and 

 Austrian marches. It was exhibited for many 

 years in Vienna, then fell into the hands of a 

 traveling troupe, where it rapidly deteriorated. 



The Clarionet-Player, made by Van Oeckelen in 

 Holland and exhibited in New York in 1860, 

 was an instrument that differed very materially 

 in construction from its predecessors. It was 

 wound up by a clock mechanism, and would 

 move its head and eyes, bow to the audience, 

 put the clarionet to its mouth, and finger off 

 operatic and classical selections with a perfect 

 fury. The list of pieces was quite large, and 

 on the whole they were well rendered. 



A Musical Bed. A Bohemian mechanic built, 

 in 1858, a bed that, as soon as lain upon, began 

 playing airs from Auber, and lulled the occu- 

 pant to sleep with ^Eolian sweetness. At the 

 hour set for rising it changed its tactics, and 

 thundered forth one clashing march after an- 

 other until relieved of the sleeper's weight. 



