Close to this gamba of Da Salo’s with the spurious scroll, his second example exhibits his skill as a wood-carver, in the exquisitely chiselled head of an old woman, which surmounts the neck. The varnish is slightly darker on this gamba than on the one beside it. Age is no doubt responsible for this and not the maker himself, as it is also for the black Da Salo fiddles of which some connoisseurs speak with a degree of scorn. It may be noticed that there is but one line of purfling round this gamba. This was such an ordinary custom with Da Salo that comment is unnecessary. It is clumsily let in, lacking the grace and finish expended upon this difficult art by Cremona makers. The Amatis above all others excelled in the neatness of their purfling, and the customary three lines is always to be met with in their fiddles as well as in those of Stradivarius. The latter, however, on one solitary occasion reverted to one line of purfling in the violoncello upon which Bernard Romberg played for many years. This instrument is unique in many ways, for the gifted Cremonese maker made the back and sides of plane wood and poplar, material which he employed occasionally in the early part of his career, but which he had discarded at the date (1711) he made the violoncello. Speaking of wood, by-the-by, the proper selection of timber was held to be a matter of great importance by the ancient _luthier_. M. Fetis, in his “Antonio Stradivarius,” has given some interesting information regarding the source from whence the old viol-makers obtained their wood. He says that maple was sent from Croatea, Turkey and Dalmatia to Venice in the shape of galley oars, and that the Turks, ever seeking to outrival the Venetians, and consequently frequently at war with them, took care to choose wood with the handsomest wave, knowing well that it would break the more easily. It was from among this selection that the viol-maker had to gather his timber. In his own country there was certainly little difficulty in obtaining wood, but, where would he get such maple as came to him from Dalmatia? Secretly he welcomed this “... thing devised by the enemy”