A complete set of Haida gambling-sticks is also to be found in the National Museum; and casts of the carvings have been carefully taken on plaster, which displays the shape of the figures more plainly than the curved surfaces of the sticks can do. Thirty-two of these cubes compose “a pack,” and these are contained in a leather pouch. The game is usually played by a number of persons, who squat on the ground in a circle around the dealer, who places the sticks in front of him under a pile of shavings or shredded cedar bark, and draws them out with great ceremony and hands them to the players, who receive them with grunts, cries, and other uncouth noises. Each stick has its value; and they are passed with great rapidity from one to the other, the players staking considerable amounts on the game. These cubes are made of spruce, about six inches long and half an inch thick; on them patterns of birds, animals, fish, men, and other devices are cut. The designs necessarily adapt themselves to the curved surfaces, and on some are repeated, so that when the stick is held upright the same pattern is seen back to back. This arrangement is almost always followed, although there are exceptions to the rule. What the designs mean and what their value is no one seems to know, but it is quite evident that they are Totemic devices; and these gambling-sticks are probably the most peculiar contrivances that have ever been invented to take the place of the pictured cards or the graven chessmen, and though not to be considered as a link between the two, certainly contain characteristics peculiar to both. They may be classed into suits, which can be divided as follows: _Figures_, _Devices_, _Animals_, _Fish_, _Birds_, and _Reptiles_ or _Insects_.