In his recent posting on the Montgomery Ward 'French Mechanical Horn',
Mark Kinsler says:

"In the photographs section you'll find this item from the 1894-95
Montgomery Ward catalog.  It seems to be a French mechanical horn in
which you blow in one end and 'work the lever' to play a tune.  There's
also a three-tune model.  Does anyone have any idea how these worked?"

From the information in the ad, that the three tune version has two
extra sets of reeds, it would seem that the notes of each tune are
embedded in a set of reeds which presumably would be indexed by
operation of "the lever".  Just how the duration of each note was
established, I can't imagine.  It is possible that was left to the
operator of the instrument in which case the output sound would be
interesting, to say the least.

I must thank Mark for bringing this instrument to our attention;
I wonder if one has survived somewhere.

Frank Chadwick