end of the ground from that allotted to them. Whenever the ball is driven by the ῥάβδοι (rackets) to the end of the ground, it counts as a victory.”[9] Two games, which were not confined to children, and which are not widely diffused, though they exist, among us, are the use of _astragali_, or knuckle-bones of animals, so cut nearly square as to serve for dice; and with these children threw for luck, the highest throw (sixes) being accounted the best. In later Greek art representations of Eros and other youthful figures engaged with astragali are frequent. It is to be feared that this game was an introduction to dice-playing, which was so common, and so often abused, that among the few specimens of ancient dice remaining there are some false, and which were evidently loaded. The other game to which I allude is the Italian _morra_, the guessing instantaneously how many fingers are thrown up by the player and his adversary. It is surprising how fond Southern men and boys still are of this simple game, chiefly, however, for gambling purposes. There was tossing in a blanket, walking on stilts, swinging, leap-frog, and many other similar plays, which are ill-understood, and worse explained, by the learned, and of no importance to us, save as proving the general similarity of the life of little boys then as now. We know nothing about the condition of little girls of the same age, except that they specially indulged in ball-playing. Like our own children, the girls probably joined, to a lesser degree, in the boys’ games, and only so far as they could be carried on within-doors, in the court of the house. There are graceful representations of their swinging and practising our _seesaw_. Dolls they had in plenty, and doll-making (of clay) was quite a special trade at Athens. In more than one instance we have found in children’s graves their favorite dolls, which sorrowing parents laid with them as a sort of keepsake in the tomb. § 12. Most unfortunately, there is hardly a word left of the nursery rhymes and of the folk-lore, which are very much more interesting than the physical amusements of children. Yet we know that such popular songs existed in plenty; we know, too, from the early fame of Æsop’s fables, from the myths so readily invented and exquisitely told by Plato, that here we have lost a real fund of beautiful and stimulating children’s stories.[10] And of course here, too, the general character of such stories throughout the human race was preserved. FOOTNOTES: [6] Plut. “Alkib.,” c. 2. [7] This seems to be the interpretation of “Achar.” 920 sq., according to Grasberger. [8] ix. 103. [9] I do not know whether so late an authority is valid proof for the early Greek origin of a game. Most certainly the polo played at Constantinople at the same time came from an equestrian people, and not from the Greeks.