Although I have presented the picture of the two flutes that in style accord with the flute designed by the sculptor as if that upon such Midas played, I believe that a scrutiny of dates forbids the supposition; those flutes will prove to be of too late a date, Midas is certainly more likely to have used the _double_ flutes pictured upon the vases,—the bulbed flutes, and not the single ones fingered by the two hands. In the plural case, the two flutes would be rightly described, being the style with the two reed-pipes, one for each hand. Accepting Pindar’s words literally—“slender brass”—I think that we must believe that he meant to describe the reed as of brass: a reed of slender metal through which the breath passed on its way, urging the reed into vibration. Now, what I would suggest is that, if silk reached Greece from China in those days, why should not the free reed? Actually it is of slender brass. I have made experiments with the free reed upon my copies of the Greek flutes in the British Museum, and see very clearly the possibility of the adaptation of the free reed to the hollow cocoon-like bulb pictured of the flutes in the paintings upon the Etruscan vases, and which, as you have read, I interpret as being designed to hold a reed within it; the first, second, or third bulb being selected for the purpose, according to “the mode” of the particular piece of music that was to be played. The bulbs are quite large enough for holding the free reed of the requisite size and flexibility. In the Chinese organ “Sheng” the little brass free reed is fixed on a small quill-like reed stem and is passed through a hole into the _bowl_ that holds the series of reeds. The position of the reed for sounding is exactly the same as that which I am supposing for it in the _bulb_. Again, it has been supposed from a remark made by an ancient reporter that a certain flute player in a contest was unable to play because of an accident by which his flute reed had become bent; that therefore it may have been a metal reed such as the free reed.