A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Waldteufel

WALDTEUFEL, i.e. wood-demon. A toy, mentioned by Felix Mendelssohn in his childish letters to Goethe's boys (1821). It is a small cardboard drum, open at one end, with a catgut from the head to a neck in the end of a short stick. When the stick is whirled round, the catgut grates round the neck, and being reverberated by the drum, makes a loud humming noise. 'The sound of this in a room,' says Felix, 'is excruciating; out of doors, where they are going in hundreds at once, the noise is more bearable.' ('Goethe and Mendelssohn,' ed. 2, p. 28.)

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