Another game, not entirely confined to children, was the Chalkismos, which consisted in twisting round rapidly on a board or table a piece of money, and placing the point of the finger so dexterously on its upper edge as to put a stop to its motion without permitting it to fall. This was a favourite amusement of Phryne the hetaira, as building houses of cards was of La Belle Stuart.[509] Some of these sports were peculiar to the female sex,[510] as the Pentalitha, which is still played by girls in some remote provinces of our island, where it is called “Dandies.” The whole apparatus of the game consisted in five astragals—knuckle bones—pebbles, or little balls, which, gathered up rapidly, were thrown into the air and attempted to be caught in falling on the back of the hand or between the slightly spread fingers. If any fell it was allowable to pick them up, provided this were done with the fingers of the same hand on which the other astragals rested.[511] The girls of France, according to Bulenger, still amuse themselves with the Pentalitha, there played with five little glass balls, which are flung in the air and caught so dexterously as seldom to fall either on the table or on the ground. I have never, however, seen it played myself in that country. Footnote 509: Poll. ix. 118. Footnote 510: The game of astragals, properly so called, was common to both sexes (Paus. vi. 24. 7), who saw in Elis one of the Graces, represented with an astragal in her hand, while her two companions held the one a rose, the other a branch of myrtle, symbolical of their relationship to Aphrodite. The poets sometimes transfer these sports of earth to the Olympian halls, where we find Eros and Ganymede playing with golden astragals—Cf. Apollon. Rhod. iii. 117. seq. Cf. Odyss. α. 107. Il. χ. 87. seq. Footnote 511: Poll. ix. 126. The Astragalismos,[512] which by the Romans was denominated talorum or taxillorum ludus, (by Hyde through the Greek πάσσαλος, derived from the Hebræo-Punic Assila,) by the Arabs Ka’b or Shezn, by the Persians Shesh-buzhûl bâzi, by the Turks Depshelìm, (played in their country both by girls and boys,) by the French Garignon or Osselets, in English “Cockall.”[513] In the game of astragals the Persians, as is implied in the name given above, often use six bones while the Greeks employed only four, which were thrown either on a table or on the floor. According to Lucian,[514] the huckle bones were sometimes those of the African gazelle. Footnote 512: Children, according to Lysander, were to be deceived with astragals, and men with oaths.—Plut. Lysan. § 8. Footnote 513: Hyde, Hist. Talor. § 2. t. ii. p. 314. Footnote 514: Amor. § 16. Theoph. Char. c. 5. See Nixon. Acc. of Antiq. at Hercul. Phil. Trans. vol. 50. pt. i. p. 88. Hyde. Hist. Talor. p. 137.