VAUCANSON'S FLUTE-PLAYER. '201 



inches long, was set upon the table, and in an 

 instant the lid flew up, and a bird of the size of 

 the humming-bird, and of the most beautiful 

 plumage, started from its nest. After fluttering 

 its wings, it opened its bill and performed four 

 different kinds of the most beautiful warbling. 

 It then darted down into its nest, and the lid 

 closed upon it. The moving power in this piece 

 of mechanism is said to have been springs which 

 continued their action only four minutes. As 

 there was no room within so small a figure for 

 accommodating pipes to produce the great variety 

 of notes which were warbled, the artist used only 

 one tube, and produced all the variety of sounds 

 by shortening and lengthening it with a moveable 

 piston. 



Ingenious as these pieces of mechanism are, 

 they sink into insignificance when compared with 

 the machinery of M. Vaucanson, which had pre- 

 viously astonished all Europe. His two principal 

 automata were the flute-player, and the pipe and 

 tabor-player. The flute-player was completed in 

 1 736, and wherever it was exhibited it produced 

 the greatest sensation. When it came to Paris it 

 was received with great suspicion. The French' 

 savans recollected the story of M. Raisin, the 

 organist of Troyes, who exhibited an automaton 

 player upon the harpischord, which astonished 

 the French court by the variety of its powers. 

 The curiosity of the king could not be restrained, 

 and in consequence of his insisting upon examin- 

 ing the mechanism, there was found in the figure 

 a pretty little musician five years of age. It was 

 natural, therefore, that a similar piece of mecha- 

 nism should be received with some distrust ; but 

 this feeling was soon removed by M. Vaucanson, 



