starting point to the exclusion of all previous details,
whether of ascertained fact or conjecture. Therefore I will follow
the invariable custom of fiddle literature and go back to the regions
of speculative history for a commencement.

Speculative history is, I fear, more fascinating to the writer than
convincing to the reader, so I will be as brief as possible in this
particular, nor will I, like one John Gunn who wrote a treatise on
fingering the violoncello, fill up space with irrelevant matter such
as the modes and tunings of the ancient Greek lyres, etc., highly
interesting as these subjects may be, although it is a very tempting
method of getting over the "bald and unconvincing" nature of the
bow's early history.

We of the present generation, having the bow in its most perfect
form, are apt to take its existence for granted; we do not think that
there must have been a period when no such thing was known, and,
consequently, fail to appreciate the difficulties in the way of its
discovery or invention. With some other instruments it is different.
For wind instruments we have a prototype in the human voice, and one
may reasonably suppose that the trumpet class were evolved by slow
process from the simple action of placing the hands on either side of
the mouth to augment a shout. The harp may have been suggested by the
twanging of a bow-string as an arrow left the archer's hand, and a
seventeenth century play writer fancifully attributed the invention
of string instruments to the finding of a "dead horse head." Here, of
course, would be found a complete resonance-chamber and possibly some
dried and stretched sinews--quite sufficient to suggest lute-like
instruments to men of genius such as must have formed a much larger
proportion of the world's population in prehistoric times than is the
case to-day; for brilliant as our great men of art and science are,
there are few who can be called _originators_ in the simplest meaning
of the word.

Thus, then, we have wind instruments, harps and lutes; but the bow
eludes us. If we are determined to find a suggestion in nature we
must turn to certain insects of the cricket and grasshopper tribe.
Many of these, in particular the locusts, are thorough fiddlers,
using their long hind-leg as a bow across the edge of the hollow
wing-case to produce the familiar chirping sound.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.]

Naturally, the strings are absent, but here is to be found a perfect
examp