The use of instruments in the first development of music (phylogenetically and ontogenetically) furnished the necessary hold and the equally necessary definiteness for the melodic frame-work. Further than this, however, the use of instruments does not seem to go, all subsequent development proceeding from vocal music. But in earliest times it required whole centuries before all the capabilities of even the most simple and primitive instruments were completely understood and made use of. Possibly this may in some degree account for the surprising antiquity of many comparatively complicated instruments, the full appropriate use of which would otherwise be quite incomprehensible. Concerning this antiquity the following archaeological discoveries furnish the desired explanation: At a meeting of the Archaeological Institute (3rd June, 1864) the Earl of Dunraven exhibited the bone of an animal of which the original use was at that time unknown. The report of the Archceological Journal states that it was thought to have formed part of a musical instrument or a crossbow. It was found in Ireland in a moat at Desmond Castle. Professor Owen pronounced the material to be a bone of the Irish elk (cervus alces); from this others drew further conclusions and declared the bone to be the remains of an “Irish lyra”. This last hypothesis is somewhat hazardous, but not at all because of the improbability that at the time of the Irish elk there were instruments which could be used for musical purposes.