Among the Apache Indians of Arizona and Mexico, "old matrons and small children dance until no longer able to stand, and stop for very exhaustion" (546. 46). _The Child as Poet_. Victor Hugo, in one of his rhapsodies, exclaims: "The most sublime psalm that can be heard on this earth is the lisping of a human soul from the lips of childhood," and the rhythm within whose circle of influence the infant early finds himself, often leads him precociously into the realm of song. Emerson has said, "Every word was once a poem," and Andrew Lang, in his facetious _Ballade of Primitive Man_, credits our Aryan ancestors with speaking not in prose, but "in a strain that would scan." In the statement of the philosopher there is a good nugget of truth, and just a few grains of it in the words of the wit. The analogy between the place and effect of rhythm, music, and poetry in the life of the child and in the life of the savage has been frequently noted. In his recent study of _Rhythm_ (405 a), Dr. Bolton has touched up some aspects of the subject. With children "the habit of rhyming is almost instinctive" and universal. Almost every one can remember some little sing-song or nonsense-verse of his own invention, some rhyming pun, or rhythmic adaptation. The enormous range of variation in the wording of counting-out rhymes, game-songs, and play-verses, is evidence enough of the fertility of invention of child-poets and child-poetesses. Of the familiar counting-out formula _Eeny, meeny, miny, mo_, the variants are simply legion. The well-known lines of Pope:-- "As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came," receive abundant illustration from the lives of the great geniuses of song. Among primitive peoples, if anywhere, _poeta nascitur, non fit_. In her article on _Indian Songs_, Miss Alice C. Fletcher says: "Children make songs for themselves, which are occasionally handed down to other generations. These juvenile efforts sometimes haunt the memory in maturer years. An exemplary old man once sang to me a composition of his childhood, wherein he had exalted the pleasures of disobedience; but he took particular care that his children should not hear this performance. Young men sing in guessing-games, as they gambol with their companions, tossing from hand to hand a minute ball of buffalo hair or a small pebble, moving their arms to the rhythm of the music." This, and the following statement made of the Omaha Indians, will hold for not a few other savage and barbarous tribes: "Children compose ditties for their games, and young men add music to give zest to their sports" (445). Dr. F. Boas says of the Eskimo of Baffin Land (402. 572): "Children tell one another fables and sing short songs, especially comic and satirical ones." The heroes of the Basque legend of Aquelarre are thus described by Miss Monteiro (505. 22):--