The comparison of our short nursery rhymes with those current in other countries, next engages our attention. Halliwell has remarked that some of our rhymes are chanted by the children of Germany and Scandinavia, which to him strikingly exhibited the great antiquity and remote origin of these rhymes. The observation which he made with regard to the countries of Northern Europe, applies to the countries of Central and Southern Europe also. Scholarly collections of rhymes have been published during recent years in Scandinavia, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and referring to special parts of these countries, which give us a fair insight into their nursery lore. (Cf., p. 212). The comparison of these collections with ours yields surprising results. Often the same thought is expressed in the same form of verse. Frequently the same proper name reappears in the same connection. In many cases rhymes, that seem senseless taken by themselves, acquire a definite meaning when taken in conjunction with their foreign parallels. Judging from what we know of nursery rhymes and their appearance in print, the thought of a direct translation of rhymes in the bulk cannot be entertained. We are therefore left to infer, either that rhymes were carried from one country to another at a time when they were still meaningful, or else that they originated in different countries as the outcome of the same stratum of thought. The sorting of nursery rhymes according to the number of their foreign parallels, yields an additional criterion as to the relative antiquity of certain rhymes. For those rhymes that embody the more primitive conceptions are those that are spread over the wider geographical area. The above inquiry has shown that pieces such as _Mother Hubbard_ and _Three Blind Mice_ are relatively new, and that all the rhymes formed on the model of _Little Miss Muffet_ go back to the _Cushion Dance_ and to the game of _Sally Waters_. Rhymes of this kind are entirely without foreign parallels. On the other hand, calls, such as those addressed to the ladybird and the snail, and riddle-rhymes, such as that on _Humpty Dumpty_, have numerous and close parallels half across Europe. The ladybird is the representative among ourselves of a large class of insects which were associated with the movement of the sun from the earliest times. The association goes back to the _kheper_ or chafer of ancient Egypt, which has the habit of rolling along the ball that contains its eggs. This ball was identified as the orb of the sun, and the _kheper_ was esteemed as the beneficent power that helped to keep it moving. A like importance attached to the chafers that had the power of flying, especially to the ladybird (_Coccinella septem punctata_). In India the insect was called _Indragopas_, that is "protected by Indra." The story is told how this insect flew too near the sun, singed its wings, and fell back to the earth.[43]