le of the excitation of frictional vibration. Whether this was
actually what suggested the bow is another matter.

For my own part, while admitting that in close observation of nature
our early forefathers were probably supreme, I prefer to think that
the innate concept of the bow was latent in the human mind and only
waited some fortunate accident of observation to start it into being.

I am aware, however, that this is a highly unscientific position to
take up.

That there should be so little in the way of adequate record
concerning the development of this indispensable adjunct of the
violin is not a matter for great wonderment, for, as has elsewhere
been shown, the earlier bowed instruments were of such primitive
construction, and, consequently, so weak in tone that they were
totally unsuited to the purposes of ceremonial or pageantry; two
subjects which form prominent features in ancient pictorial
representations. And if we come to what we fondly term "more
civilized" times, we find such crude drawings of early viols and
kindred instruments that we must not be surprised if such an
apparently unimportant detail as the bow should receive still more
perfunctory treatment at the hands of the artist.

We must also remember that the word "fiddlesticks" is still applied
to anything that is beneath contempt in its utter lack of importance.

Undoubtedly the idea of exciting vibrations in a stretched string by
means of friction is one of great antiquity; so much so, indeed, that
the question of origin becomes merely one of conjecture. True, the
majority of writers look upon the bow as a development of the
_plectrum_, but this is a theory that I must confess does not strike
me as being satisfactorily probable. To paraphrase a popular
expression, "fingers were made before _plectra_," the latter being an
"improvement" on nature's contrivance. And I see no reasonable
objection to the supposition that friction may have been used as a
means of tone-production prior to the introduction of the _plectrum_.

The great dissimilarity between the producing of sound by plucking,
and that by friction is such that I see no occasion to evolve one
from the other and consider their introduction most probably coeval.

When we come to the direct percussion of a string, as in the
dulcimer, piano, etc., we at once perceive a possible connection
between the hammer of the one and the rod or bow of the other: the
accidental colliding of the bo