If, then, we may with some plausibility illustrate the _carmen_, the _incantatio_, and the ἑπαοιδή of the Greeks and the Romans, with the ‘singing’ of the Torres Straits and Central Australia, the question arises, What exactly is it that the magician ‘sings’? In the Torres Straits it apparently is the spear which is ‘sung’, for the words used are, ‘Into body, go, go’; and Messrs. Spencer and Gillen say that in Central Australia also it is the stick or the bone which is ‘sung’. But when we examine the words of the ‘singing’ or charm, as given by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, we find that they do not refer to the stick or the bone which is used in the magical rite, but to the person against whom the rite is directed: ‘May your heart be rent asunder, may your head and throat be split open.’ The inference, therefore, seems to be that it is the victim that the ‘singing’ or spell is originally directed against; and only later that the stick or bone itself comes to be bewitched, just as money, which is valuable for what it will purchase, comes to be regarded by the miser as an end in itself. If this is so, it opens up another possibility of interest which I must be content merely to suggest for consideration and investigation. It is that the earliest form of ‘singing’ or spell may be connected with cursing. Some forms of cursing or imprecation invoke the assistance of the gods, but not all; and it may be that those are the earliest which operate directly and without reference to gods. Caliban invokes no gods when he cries: All the infections that the sun sucks up From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him By inch-meal a disease! or a south-west blow on ye, And blister you all o’er.