The Mandoline (Italian Mandolino) is smaller than the Mandora, a kind of alto lute. It is strung with catgut and wire, the bass strings being of catgut covered with silver wire, and is played with a plectrum. Of several kinds, including the Mandore, Mandurina, and Pandurina, that have been used in Italy, the Milanese and Neapolitan Mandolines are the best known. The Milanese Mandoline, with five or six pairs of strings, preserves old cither tunings; the Neapolitan Mandoline, which is really an eighteenth-century instrument, is evidently of later introduction, as it is tuned in fifths similar to a violin, which makes performance upon it easily attainable by violin players. Mozart wrote the serenade in _Don Giovanni_ with an accompaniment for it, but beautiful as this composition is, the accompaniment appears scarcely characteristic of the Mandoline or of the Bandurria either--a small kind of Spanish guitar of deeper pitch than the Mandoline, which, for local colour, would have been the right instrument. These instruments, like the Dulcimer, make their characteristic effects by means of the reiteration of notes, analogous to what is called "repetition" on a pianoforte, the intention being to convey an impression of sustained sound, and make the melody prominent when several other instruments are being played. The accordance of the Neapolitan Mandoline is-- [Music] of the Milanese Mandoline of five notes-- [Music] of the Milanese Mandoline of six notes-- [Music] and of the Bandurria-- [Music] the three higher notes being here of catgut--the lower of silk overspun with metal. The Bandurria, like the Mandolines, is played with a plectrum, called in Spanish "Pua," which is prevented from defacing the wood by the presence of a tortoiseshell plate, let into the sound-board. The plectrum is usually a small piece of tortoiseshell or quill. [Illustration: XXIV] PLATE XXIV. WELSH CRWTH. RUSSIAN BALALÄIKA.