sight out of the question that we may consider hearing, which is our present theme, reflex movements, either casual or habitual, have certainly induced primitive men to place their hands on the mouth, either so as to suppress the sound or to augment it by using both hands as a kind of shell.  It is easy to imagine the use of shells or other hollow objects as a vehicle of sound, either for amusement or some other cause, and these rude instruments might serve as the first step to the invention of wind instruments.  Reflection on these spontaneous experiments would readily lead to the search for some mode of prolonging or imitating the voice.  In these attempts men might be guided by their observation of the whistle and song of birds, whose beaks may have served as a model for the construction of the flute and reed-pipe.  Pott traces the word for sound to the root svar, and hence, after some natural phonetic changes, we have in Lithuanian szwilpti for the song of birds.  Of all natural objects, different kinds of reeds and the hollow stalks of plants are, owing to their hollow and cylindrical form, best adapted for the imitation of a bird’s beak and the sonorous transmission of breath.  In many languages the word for a flute is the same as that for a reed.  In Sanscrit, vanca and venu mean a flute and bamboo; in Persian, na and nay mean a flute and reed; in Greek [Greek:  donas], and in Latin calamus, have the same double meaning, and many more examples might be given.

Stringed instruments are a more elaborate invention, and may have been suggested by the vibration of a bow-string when it is twanged.  The bow is common to all modern savages, and was also found among extinct peoples and those which are now civilized, as well as in prehistoric times.  The Sanscrit word for a stringed instrument, tata or vitata, is derived from the root tan, to stretch.  Pictet observes that one name for a lute is rudri, from rud, to lament, that is, a plaintive instrument; in Persian we have rod for song, music, or a stringed instrument.  The etymology of arcus is the same; the root arc not only means to hurl, but to sing or resound.  Homer and Rannjana often allude to the sonorousness of the bow and its string.  Homer says in speaking of the bow of Pandarus, “stridit funis, et nervus valde sonuit.”  And when Ulysses drew his avenging bow, the cord emitted a clear sound like the voice of a swallow. Locaka, another name for a cord, also means one who speaks, from loc, loqui; and the Persian rud, roda, a bow-string, also means a song.  In the Veda the root arc’ is used in speaking of the roaring wind, or of a long echoing sound.  Again tavara, a bow-string, is from tan, to stretch, to sound.  The Greek [Greek:  tonos] must be referred to the same root, and signifies, a bow-string, a sound, an accent,