10 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
line, is carved in its centre in rather rude and primitive pattern, but 
it ends in the claw of an animal, which, from the spirited mode of its 
representation, forms a suitable termination to the pillar. In the 
Catalogue of Musical Instruments, published by the South Kensington 
Museum, and edited by Carl Engel, there is an engraving of an early 
harp, taken from the manuscript of the monastery of St. Blasius, in 
which the front pillar of the harp is terminated by a claw, very 
similar to that now figured, which attaches it to the lower part of 
the instrument. 
The number of strings in this harp, shown by the key-holes, by 
the straining-pegs, and by the holes in the sound-board, was twenty-. 
six only. According to Sir W. Ferguson the Irish harp was “usually 
strung with thirty strings, being a compass from C to D im alt, com- 
