crossbow. It was found in Ireland in a moat at Desmond
Castle. Professor Owen pronounced the material to be a
bone of the Irish elk (cervus alces); from this others drew
further conclusions and declared the bone to be the remains
of an "Irish lyra". This last hypothesis is somewhat
hazardous, but not at all because of the improbability that
at the time of the Irish elk there were instruments which
could be used for musical purposes. On the contrary,
this latter presumption has been made more probable
through further discoveries of a less hypothetical nature.
Among the relics of the Troglodytes of the Dordogne
valley was a reindeer bone pierced at one end by an
oblique hole, reaching to the medullary canal. It was
possible to produce a shrill sound from it by blowing as
one would a hollow key. ¹ Paul Broca called this instru-
ment a "rallying whistle," but it is questionable if this is
a correct definition; ² still other and more complicated
instruments have been found which give more definite
evidence of their being used for a musical purpose. M.
E. Pietto in 1871 found in the cavern at Gourdan (Haute-
Garonne), in a layer of charcoal and cinders mixed with
flint implements, an instrument which he called a neolithic
flute made of a bone and pierced with holes (it is not
stated how many) at the side. Wilson considers this
discovery to be an undoubted example of the very earliest
musical practice. ³ Mr. Fétis, ⁴ too, mentions and gives a
diagram of a flute of stag-horn (found near Poitiers), which,

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