Flute and Animals
rule dislike the violin, but like the flute, especially if played in the key of C minor. Bachaumont (Mem., Sec. iv. 165) says that Blavet gave lessons on the flute to a great prince, whose bad playing always caused his dog to bark and howl fearfully, but that the moment the master began to play the dog stopped barking and licked the feet of the player. Choron mentions a similar incident. The Chinese attract the che-hiang, a shy animal from which they procure musk, by playing lively airs on a flute. Bombet, in his Letters of Haydn and Mozart, says that sheep and goats on Lake Maggiore surrounded a flute-player with such delight that the shepherd had to beg him to stop playing. Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy (ii. 2) says that the dog, the hare, wolf, and lamb are much affected by the sound of a pipe: harts, hinds, bears, and horses are exceedingly delighted with music. Mr. Galpin mentions a cat of his acquaintance that was always frightened by the sound of a flute or trombone, but was lulled by a fiddle and absolutely pleased with a bagpipe—possibly, he adds, it was a Persian cat, and had a lingering recollection of Oriental reed instruments! Flutes are said to attract mosquitoes in India, and the same authority mentions a canary that always sang when a piece in E♭ was played on a flute, but never to any other key! Emerson Tenant, in his work The Wild Elephant, p. 141, mentions that a transverse flute called the Bansee, or Bansulee, is used in Ceylon to tame wild elephants, John Wesley, himself a flute-player, mentions in his Journal (December, 1764) that
265
