But it is not always a mouse or a rat that brings the child a new and stronger tooth. Apparently any strong-toothed animal will serve the purpose. Thus when his or her tooth drops out, a Singhalese will throw it on the roof, saying, “Squirrel, dear squirrel, take this tooth and give me a dainty tooth.”​[652] In Bohemia a child will sometimes throw its cast tooth behind the stove, asking the fox to give him an iron tooth instead of the bone one.​[653] In Berlin the teeth of a fox worn as an amulet round a child’s neck make teething easy for him, and ensure that his teeth will be good and lasting.​[654] Similarly, in order to help a child to cut its teeth, the aborigines of Victoria fastened to its wrist the front tooth of a kangaroo, which the child used as a coral to rub its gums with.​[655] Again, the beaver can gnaw through the hardest wood. Hence among the Cherokee Indians, when the loosened milk tooth of a child has been pulled out or has dropped out of itself, the child runs round the house with it, repeating four times, “Beaver, put a new tooth into my jaw,” after which he throws the tooth on the roof of the house.​[656] In Macedonia, a child carefully keeps for a time its first drawn tooth, and then throws it on the roof with the following invocation to the crow:— {p181} “_O dear crow, here is a tooth of bone,_ _Take it and give me a tooth of iron instead,_ _That I may be able to chew beans_ _And to crunch dry biscuits._”​[657] We can now understand a custom of the Thompson Indians of British Columbia, which the writer who records it is unable to explain. When a child lost its teeth, the father used to take each one as it fell out and to hide it in a piece of raw venison, which he gave to a dog to eat. The animal swallowed the venison and the tooth with it.​[658] Doubtless the custom was intended to ensure that the child’s new teeth should be as strong as those of a dog. In Silesia mothers sometimes swallow their children’s cast teeth in order to save their offspring from toothache. The intention is perhaps to strengthen the weak teeth of the child by the strong teeth of the grown woman.​[659] Amongst the Warramunga of Central Australia, when a girl’s tooth has been knocked out as a solemn ceremony, it is pounded up and the fragments placed in a piece of flesh, which has to be eaten by the girl’s mother. When the same rite has been performed on a man, his pounded tooth must be eaten in a piece of meat by his mother-in-law.​[660] Among the heathen Arabs, when a boy’s tooth fell out, he used to take it between his finger and thumb and throw it towards the sun, saying, “Give me a better for it.” After that his teeth were sure to grow straight, and close, and strong. “The sun,” says Tharafah, “gave the lad from his own nursery-ground a tooth like a hailstone, white and polished.”​[661] Thus the reason for throwing the old teeth towards the sun would seem to have been a notion