Whistles are an extremely ancient form of flute: short, stopped pipes with ducts, they are devoid of fingerholes and yield only one tone. Sometimes a captive pellet or a pea is placed in the interior in order to create a trilling effect.
In the older European literature, whistle is synonymous with decoy whistle, as made for and by hunters and bird catchers to imitate specific sounds or calls of the game. As long ago as the thirteenth century we hear of...