A little music history anyone?  Did you really think that your nice shiny instruments always looked like that?
Here are some great links to sites dealing with early brass instruments.
If you want more information on early brass, you might consider joining the Historic Brass Society.  I've placed a link to their site on my
Brass Organizations Links page.

Ophicleide
There is a reason why the Ophicleide is placed directly after the serpent on this list of early brass instruments: it's name translates as "keyed serpent".  It was invented by Hallary in the 1800's and was designed as an improvement over the serpent.  The serpent is difficult to play because the tone holes are not cut with regard to where they make the most sense acoustically, but rather by where they can be reached.  Because of this the serpent is very difficult to play in tune, requiring a lot of "lipping" to achieve accurate intonation.  Hallary revised this system by making the ophicleide out of metal instead of wood and positioning 9 tone holes covered with pads in approximately the correct locations.  Additional keys were added later to improve certain notes.  Now, you may be asking yourself how these two early brass instruments are related to modern instruments.  The serpent evolved into the ophicleide and the ophicleide evolved into the modern day tuba.

Cornetto
The Cornetto is actually a hybrid instrument.  It has a cup shaped trumpet-like mouthpiece but has finger holes like a recorder.  Like the Serpent, it is made of wood and then covered in leather.  During its heyday in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was the most highly regarded brass instrument, being expected to play anything a violin or human voice could perform.  Because of the difficulty of its technique, even at the height of its popularity there were very few accomplished players.  The cornetto began to decline late in the 17th century as violin technique began to advance and instruments like the oboe were becoming more modernized, and by the 18th century it had almost completely died out.

Sackbutt
I tried to find a site about Sackbutts but couldn't.  If anyone knows of one, please e-mail me and I'll get a link going.
 

Natural Horn
Can any of you horn players picture your instruments without valves?  That's what a natural horn is.  Before 1814, when Heinrich Stoelzel invented the valve, horn players had to change the pitch of their instrument by hand stopping and change the key by placing different crook lengths into the instrument between the mouthpiece and the body of the horn.  This link will take you to a very in depth article about how the natural horn works and the history behind it.