As an entertainment, both Magiotti and Kircher propose hiding the way of pressing on water by means of a pipe which may be concealed behind a board or a wall. It’s the reports of Monconys’ travels (1665) that display a mechanism with a bladder which exerts pressure and makes the little devils dance when it is pressed with a metal bar. Other similar representations, one of which works with a piston for exerting pressure, are represented in Sturm (1685). In the three previous cases the mechanism is hidden in a box, just like in the drawings by Büchner (1765). Desaguliers (1744) and Henner (1760) show other different models, but they always intend to conceal the cause of the little devil’s dancing.
In Poujoulx (1805) and Jamieson (1837), a lever placed at the bottom presses the membrane.
In Charton (1849), a habitual activity in the 17th century is depicted. Some people frequented village markets and squares showing certain physics experiments, the Little Devils among them.
In plate 56 –an anonymous postcard– an Austrian soldier boasts to another one from Russia that Napoleon obeys his orders.