Kathleen Schlesinger, 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 24… (1911)
“ During the 18th century the construction of the instrument underwent many improvements, the tendency being to make the unwieldy windings more compact. At the beginning of the 19th century the open holes had been discarded, and as many as fourteen or seventeen keys disposed conveniently along the tube. Gerber, in his Lexikon (1790) , states that in 1780 a musician of Lille, named Régibo, making further experiments on the serpent, produced a bass horn, giving it the shape of the bassoon for greater portability ”
