flageolet. This instrument has six holes arranged in two triads, a thumb
and two fingers of the right hand, and the same for the left, so that if
all holes are open there would seem to be nothing to steady the pipe.
But in Mr. Welch's book (p. 50) is a figure from Greeting's _Pleasant
Companion _{108b} showing how the flageolet should be held, and this,
curiously enough, is one of the best views of what I hold to be the
proper grip for the taborer's pipe.

The tabor is still much as it was in Fra Angelico's day (judging from the
angel above referred to), and indeed in earlier times, as shown in the
piping angel in Lincoln Cathedral. We can see what a drum-maker calls
the ropes and braces {109a} for tightening the parchment; the snares are
also shown in many early drawings of tabors. These are pieces of gut or
of horse-hair, stretched across the drum-head, which add a spirited
rattle to its tone. Why the first edition of the _Dictionary of Music_
went out of its way to say that the tabor had no snares I cannot guess.

In many of the mediaeval drawings the artist is shown beating his drum on
the snare side. I had fancied that this was only one more instance of
the bad drawing of musical instruments, but when I saw the careful work
of Luca della Robbia, in which the tabors are all beaten on the snare
side, I could no longer doubt. I was, however, glad to find in a French
account {109b} of the Provencal 3-holed pipe or galoubet, that this
custom survives. In Luca della Robbia's work a single snare-cord is
shown instead of four to six catgut lines as in modern drums and this is
also true of the Provencal instrument. So that both the characteristics
that seemed strange to me in Luca's tabor survive in Provence.

It may not be generally known that the French for the snare of a drum is
_timbre_; this is the original meaning of the word, and its familiar use
to mean the characteristic tone of a musical sound is later. According
to Darmstetter the word 'timbre' is own brother to 'tambour,' both being
derived from a low Latin form of tympanum.

The tabor-stick has changed since the early centuries. In some of the
old drawings the taborer is striking his instrument with a bludgeon,
instead of the light and elegant sticks such as are to be seen in Mr.
Manning's collection at Oxford. Such implements were doubtless treasured
by the taborer. Valmajour, the tabourinaire in Daudet's _Numa
Roumestan_, possessed a drum-stic