There were several ways of playing with astragals, or knuckle-bones, which were really the ball of the ankle-joint of a lamb, or else were artificially imitated in other material. One way of playing, chiefly used by children, but also sometimes by grown-up people, was a real game of skill, and consisted in throwing up a number, usually five, of knuckle-bones, pebbles, beans, coins, etc., and catching them again on the back of the hand, meantime picking up with the stretched-out fingers those which had fallen down. Sometimes they only played “odd or even,” and one of the players had to guess straight away whether the other had an odd or even number of these astragals, which took the place of our counters, in his closed hand. Sometimes they played with astragals in the same way as with dice. In this case the four large sides of the bone, on which it might fall, had a particular numerical value, which was not written upon it, but depended on the shape of the bone, as each side differed from the others. The convex narrow side counted as one, the other, concave, narrow side as six, the broad convex side as three, and the broad concave side as four; two and five were wanting altogether, for the other little surfaces of the bone were not counted, since it could never fall upon them. Four pieces were generally used for playing, and they were treated just like dice; the best throw was that in which each of the astragals lay in a different position, and thus all values were represented, sometimes they counted according to the highest number thrown. In works of art we very often see girls playing astragal. One of the prettiest of these is the terra-cotta figure from Tanagra, represented in Fig. 103. [Illustration: FIG. 103.] Another game of chance was “fast and loose,” which very closely resembled the game still played at fairs [Illustration: FIG. 104.]