Till-: AISTKALIAN MUSEUM MAGAZINE. 



.165 



A trumpet of the Great Conch 



(Charonia tritonis) decorated as a 



battle trophy. 



Plioto. — G. C. riuttDii. 



In Hawaii the ii'reat King Kanie- 

 liameha possessed a famous military 

 bugle of this kind which liad been play- 

 ed in the battles of many generations, 

 and which had exercised supernatural 

 powers in time of peace. Such a trum- 

 pet is pictured here from a specimen 

 liossessing' exceptional interest, having 

 ))een brought from the South Seas by 

 Captain James Cook, the great naviga- 

 tor. I'his particular trumpet is thirteen 

 inches long, and the embouchure, as 

 musicians call it, of an inch in diameter 

 is cut in the antepenultimate whorl. It 

 is slung in meshes of flat sennit liraid, 

 and a trophy of tufts of long black hair 

 in a stem of human bone is thrust into 

 the axis of the sliell. Grim battle sou- 



venirs tliesc seem to be of fallen war- 

 riors and cannibal feasts. In Madagas- 

 car, according lo Dr. Sibrce, this eoncli 

 v\as called "amjombona," from the 

 tiumpeting cry of the flamingo. 



Though considerably smaller than the 

 great concli .shell, tlie European conch 



A Fijian shell trumpet made from the 



Giant Frog Shell (Bursa bubo), drilled 



With a second hole and mounted with a 



sennit handle. 



Photo. — G. C. Glutton. 



