Page:The American Boy's Handy Book edition 1.djvu/197

If you can, borrow a real fife; select a piece of cane of about the same size, and cut the holes in one side of the cane, at the same distance apart as those in the real fife. Any hollow stick of the proper size will answer as a substitute for the piece of fishing-pole.

Image missingVoice Disguiser.

is made of a piece of corn-stalk about three inches long. After removing the pith cut a notch near each end, as shown in the illustration, upon opposite sides of the corn-stalk; upon the ends stretch a piece of fish-bladder, or any thin membrane; a piece of thin tracing-paper will answer. With a large pin make a hole in each piece of membrane, as shown at A in the illustration. Now cover the notch, cut into the corn-stalk, with your mouth and laugh; the noise you produce will set you laughing in earnest. By placing your mouth over either of the notches and talking or singing, the voice is so changed as to be perfectly disguised, and if you sing a song through this instrument it sounds like some one playing on a comb covered with paper. The voice disguiser is very handy in Punch and Judy or puppet shows.

This little instrument, simple as it is, is calculated to afford considerable amusement.

With one of these toys can be made not only a loud noise, which in itself pleases most boys, but it reproduces exactly the sound of the cicada, or "locust," as the harvest-fly is commonly but improperly called. The "locust singer," as may be seen by reference to the illustration, consists of a horse-hair with a