This picture is by a native artist. It is quite modern yet the archaic air about it seems at once to take us into an older world. The modernity of the artist is evident, he has represented a degenerated type of the flute “tche,” not the ancient authentic. The white spaces are not intended for holes, they merely show the intervals between the rings of dark silk which are customary as preventing the bamboo from splitting. Correctly, the player should be shown with one hand to the right of the mouth and one to the left, the fingers covering either side three holes. So you will have to imagine the still more curious picture that would have been presented by a Chinese performer in the olden time. [Illustration: _Fig. 38._] This symmetry in proportions is very remarkable and interesting. When the flute is blown across, with the six holes closed, a note is produced which was, estimated as _d_, but is really _e_♭; and when, in addition, the thumbs close the end orifices, then the note is an octave lower, nearly. Absolute precision we should not expect except from an expert Chinese player, as a different management of the lip may be an important factor in deciding the actual tone intended, and may differ as much from the European mode of management as the voices of the Chinese differ in character from those of Europeans. For, however exact in design such standards of pitch may be, experience teaches us that scientific exactitude in pitch can only be secured when the pressure of wind producing the note is weighed, as in our organ pipes. With lip blown flutes, when a certain pressure is exceeded, the pipe blows its octave and thus no doubt the player is warned, and custom enables him to restrain his breath to the correct force. The Chinese are wonderfully methodical in their systems, but they have not in these matters ever attained to the accuracy of practical scientific demonstration. It should be remarked that E♭[Illustration] is the standard of pitch according to another pipe which was described by Amiot; and, as I have shown in my investigation, was the leading pitch note in the system of the _Sheng_. A pipe which I had made to the dimensions of that standard pipe, but made with organ pipe mouth, also gave the same note; and a fourth below that is the lowest in that scale.