orchestra, and may double the melody in the highest octave, or
accentuate brilliant points of effect in the score. It is very shrill
and exciting in the overblown notes, and without great care may give a
vulgar character to the music, and for this reason Sir Arthur Sullivan
has replaced it in the score of "Ivanhoe" by a high G flute. The
piccolo is exactly an octave higher than the flute, excepting the two
lowest notes of which it is deficient. The old cylindrical
ear-piercing fife is an obsolete instrument, being superseded by a
small army flute, still, however, called a fife, used with the side
drum in the drum and fife band.

The transverse or German flute, introduced into the orchestra by
Lulli, came into general use in the time of Handel; before that the
recorders, or flute douces, the flute à bec with beak or whistle head,
were preferred. These instruments were used in a family, usually of
eight members, viz., as many sizes from treble to bass; or in three,
treble, alto or tenor, and bass. A fine original set of those now rare
instruments, eight in number, was shown in 1890 in the music gallery
of the Royal Military Exhibition, at Chelsea; a loan collection
admirably arranged by Captain C.B. Day. They were obtained from Hesse
Darmstadt, and had their outer case to preserve them exactly like the
recorder case represented in the painting by Holbein of the
ambassadors, or rather, the scholars, recently acquired for the
National Gallery. The flageolet was the latest form of the treble,
beak, or whistle head flute. The whistle head is furnished with a
cavity containing air, which, shaped by a narrow groove, strikes
against the sharp edge and excites vibration in the conical pipe, on
the same principle that an organ pipe is made to sound, or of the
action of the player's mouth and lips upon the blowhole of the flute.
As it will interest the audience to hear the tone of Shakespeare's