These are Japanese instruments. The Siamisen and Biwa were drawn by permission of the Japanese Commission of the Inventions Exhibition, 1885. The Kokiu in the centre of the plate, and its long fishing-rod bow in four lengths of black wood mounted with silver, belong to the writer. The Siamisen is the commonest Japanese stringed instrument, and is played by the singing girls (Gesha); it has been the characteristic musical instrument at the Japanese Village, Knightsbridge, London. The name was there pronounced Samiseng (the _a_ as in father), and Dr. Müller, in an elaborate article on Japanese musical instruments in the _Mittheilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur und Völkerkunde Ostasien's_, 6tes. Heft. (Berlin, 1884), invariably writes Samiseng, but the spelling Siamisen is here adopted on the authority of Mr. Shuji Isawa, the Director of the School of Music, Tokio. In length it is about 37 inches, and has a resonance membrane of parchment stretched upon a nearly square wooden body that is 7-1/2 inches high, 6-1/2 wide, and 3 deep. There is a knob on the under side for a string holder, and the upper and under sides of it are covered with a selected part of a cat's skin, on which the bridge also rests. By the little black spots on this skin the value of the instrument is determined. Four give the highest value; two mark ordinary instruments; while those without spots are cheap. The size of the Siamisen is determined by the singer's voice. Good voices are high voices; consequently a good singer requires a smaller one. For convenience in moving about, the body and neck are made to separate. It has three silk strings and in common practice as many accordances, viz. [Music], [Music] and [Music]. It is without frets, but the fingered scale which the Japanese musicians at the London "village" appeared to know only, was indicated by small marks upon the neck, and agreed with the tuning of the thirteen-stringed koto. It has thus five intervals in the octave, that differ, however, from the Chinese pentatonic scale, and from that known in Java as Salendro. The Japanese, as heard at the "village," may be described, when descending, as a major third, a semitone, a neuter or mean third (neither major nor minor, but equivalent to a three-quarter tone and a whole tone), thus [Music]--the × denoting the mean third. This was accepted as right by natives of various parts of Japan brought together in the village whose speech dialects were not the same, although their musical dialect was thus uniform. However, since Mr. Isawa gives the interval as a minor third, and in performances which I have heard the minor effect certainly predominates, I am disposed to accept the mean third here recorded as only a widening of the normal minor third. Great latitude has to be allowed in dealing with scales, especially those of non-harmonic origin. Our own equal temperament narrowing of the same interval is rarely noticed by us, and passes as a matter of course.