Page:The American Boy's Handy Book edition 1.djvu/199

loop at one end and a weight attached to the other end. A pine stick, with a groove cut around it near the top, is thrust through the loop of horse-hair, and the groove in the stick thickly covered with powdered rosin.

When the weight is swung rapidly around, the horse-hair, in sliding over the rosined stick, produces a noise which closely resembles the well-known song of the harvest-fly. If a tin pillbox is used for a weight and the hair run through a hole in the lid and fastened by a knot upon the inside, the lid of the box acts as a sort of sounding-board. A piece of parchment or paper is sometimes pasted over the box tightly, like a drumhead, and the hair attached to this; but a little stone wrapped in a piece of cloth answers every purpose.

A piece of kid, from a discarded glove, tied tightly over the top of a bottle-head, makes a loud-voiced locust singer. The head of the bottle may easily be removed, by striking repeated blows with a case-knife on the neck of the bottle, at the desired point of separation.

This is somewhat similar to the toy just described, but even more simple in construction. It consists of a piece of shingle about an inch and one-half wide and five or six inches long, with a string attached to one end. When the hummer is swung around the head it makes a loud, buzzing noise.