Eunuch flute

The upper end of the tube is closed by means of a very fine membrane similar to an onion skin stretched across the aperture like the vellum of a drum.

By singing into this hole, the performer sets up vibrations in the membrane (technically, a mirliton), which intensifies the sound and changes its timbre to a bleating quality.

There were concerts of these flutes in four or five parts in France, adds Mersennus, and they had the advantage over other kinds of reproducing more nearly the sound of the voice.

[2] The Irish writer Samuel Beckett wrote a series of fifty-nine small poems in French called mirlitonnades after the instrument.

The Creole composer Edmond Dédé wrote Méphisto Masqué for grand orchestra and a fanfare of Mirlitone Instruments.