“On présentait à l’animal un vase dans lequel était de la graine baignant dans l’eau. Le mouvement que faisait le bec en barbotant divisait la nourriture et en facilitait l’introduction dans un tuyau placé sous le bec inférieur du canard; l’eau et la graine, ainsi aspirés tombaient dans une boîte placée sous le ventre de _l’automate_, laquelle se vidait toutes les trois ou quatre séances. L’évacuation était chose préparée à l’avance; une espèce de boullie, composée de mie de pain colorée de vert, était poussée par un coup de pompe et soigneusement reçue, sur un plateau en argent, comme produit d’une digestion artificielle,” so that, after all, this wonderful digestion of Vaucanson’s duck was nothing more than a clever trick. The third automaton of Vaucanson was a figure that played on a shepherd’s pipe with one hand while it beat a drum with the other. The instrument played upon was a little pipe with only three holes, and the different notes were produced by a greater or less pressure of air and a more or less closing of the holes, and every note, no matter how rapid was the succession, had to be modified by the tongue. In this machine there were provided as many different pressures of air as there were notes to be sounded, and the mechanism by which these operations and the fingering of the keys were effected reflects the greatest credit on the memory of this remarkable man.[9] The Automaton duck of Vaucanson was, to a certain extent, anticipated by the Comte de Gennes, Governor of the Island of Saint Christopher, who, we are told by Père Labat, constructed a peacock which could walk about and pick up grains of corn, which it swallowed and digested. I have no means of determining whether or not Vaucanson took the idea of his duck from this automaton, but that Vaucanson had imitators there is abundant evidence to prove. In the year 1752, Du Moulin, a silversmith, travelled all over Europe with automata similar to those of Vaucanson, and they were afterwards purchased in Nuremberg, by Bereis, a counsellor of Helmstadt, at whose place they were seen by Beckmann in 1754. In the year 1760, there was a writing automaton exhibited in Vienna, which was constructed by Friedrich von Knaus, and about the same time a number of very curious automata were made by Le Droz, of Chaux de Fonds, in Neufchatel. One of these was a clock, presented to the King of Spain, which had, in addition to several moving figures, a sheep that bleated in a very natural way, and a dog mounting guard over a basket of fruit; if anyone attempted to touch the basket the dog barked and growled, and if any of the fruit were taken away the barking continued until it was restored.