"Serpent!"

"Serpent!" screamed the Pigeon.
"I'm not a serpent!" said Alice indignantly. "Let me alone!"
"Serpent, I say again!" repeated the Pigeon, but in a more subdued tone, and added with a kind of sob, "I've tried every way, and nothing seems to suit them!"
"I haven't the least idea what you're talking about," said Alice.

from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Alice had just eaten part of a mushroom that made her neck grow long like a giraffe's. The Pigeon mis-identified her as a serpent (understandable mistake from a pigeon's perspective). Would you, from a human perspective, be able to identify this musical instrument if it slithered by?

Serpent (http://www.springersmusic.co.uk/library/serpent.htm)

You'll never guess: It is a serpent! It has a mouthpiece like a brass instrument and keys like a woodwind, and plays very low notes like a tuba or euphonium. The instrument was popular in military bands in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and Richard Wagner actually used one in his 1840 opera, Rienzi. Some scholars believe it was invented as far back as 1590.

Wondering what it sounds like?

Serpent!

"The Military Serpent" by Thomas Key (http://www.bate.ox.ac.uk/military-serpent.html)