as _cornetto muto_ (fig. 1), while in
France the instruments with detachable mouthpiece were distinguished by
the addition of _a bouquin_ (= with mouthpiece). The curved cornet (Ger.
_krummer Zinck_ or _Stadtkalb_; Ital. _cornetto curvo_) could not for
obvious reasons have the bore pierced through a single piece of wood;
the channel for the vibrating column of air was, therefore, hollowed out
of two pieces of wood, the diameter increasing from the mouthpiece to
the lower end. The two pieces of wood thus prepared were joined together
with glue and covered with leather, the outer surface of the tube being
finished off in octagonal shape. The separate mouthpiece, made
indifferently of wood, horn, ivory or metal,[1] analogous to that of the
trumpet, was distinctly cup-shaped and fixed by a tenon to the upper
extremity of the pipe. The primitive instrument was an animal's horn.

[Illustration: From Capt. C. R. Day's _Descriptive Catalogue of Musical
Instruments_, by permission of Messrs. Eyre & Spottiswoode.

FIG. 1.--Cornetto Muto.

FIG. 2.--Cornetto Curvo.]

Pipes of such short length give only, besides the first or fundamental,
the second and sometimes the third note of the harmonic series. Thus a
pipe that has for its fundamental A will, if the pressure of breath and
tension of the lips be steadily increased, give the octave A and the
twelfth E. In order to connect the first and second harmonics
diatonically, the length of the pipe was progressively shortened by
boring lateral holes through the tube for the fingers to cover. The
successive opening of these holes furnished the instrumentalist with the
different intervals of the scale, six holes sufficing for this purpose:

[Illustration]

The fundamental was thus connected with its octave by all the degrees of
a diatonic scale, which became chromatic by the help of cross-fingering
and the greater or less tension of the lips stretched as vibrating reeds
across the opening of the mouthpiece. This increased compass of
twenty-seven notes obtained by cross-fingering is very clearly shown in
a table by Eisel.[2] The fingering was completed by a seventh hole,
which had for its object the production of the octave without the
necessity of closing all the holes in order to produce the second note
of the harmonic series. The first complete octave, thus obtained by a
succession of fundamental notes, was easily octaved by a stronger
pressure of breath and tension of the lips ac