But most of all was Antigenedes renowned for the care he took in choosing his flutes. And we hear that he altered the time of cutting the reeds from September to July or June. For the reeds of which the flutes were made grew in the Lake Copais, in Bœotia, which also furnished Pindar and the Theban flute players with flutes. And this is the way that the reeds were cut. The flute reed always grew when the lake was full with a flood, which took place about once in every nine or ten years. Its time of growing was when, after a rainy season, the water had kept in the lake two years or more,—and the longer the better. And it was a stout, puffy reed, fuller and more fleshy and softer in appearance than other reeds. And when the lake was swollen, the reeds increased in length. And the time of cutting was in the rainy season in September. And this was the time of cutting, up to Antigenedes’ time. And he changed the time of cutting to June or July,—_i.e._, in the heat of summer. And the pipes cut at this period, they say, became seasoned much sooner; three years were sufficient to season these, whilst the others cut in the rainy season took many years to season. This is what they tell us. But I think that it was another reason which induced him to cut them in the dry season. And that was to get the reeds crisper and shorter and smaller in the bore, and that for this he was ready to sacrifice even beauty of tone to get them crisp and small. It was at any rate to get some peculiar and highly artificial effect. Doubtless, the original readers understood the author, and filled in implied details which we are in the dark about. The ancient writers avoid telling us what we want most to know. It is, for instance, at times, doubtful whether the name _reed_ always refers to the body of the pipe, or at times to the vibrating reed, and a writer or translator would easily fall into error if without practical knowledge of wind instruments, just as they do in similar matters of musical detail at the present time. Some ancient writers, we know, wrote only from reports on the subject of music, being themselves ignorant upon it, although they are in several instances our chief authorities for the learning of the ancients thereon.