the means but actually the end. The case is frequently the same with prize fighting. Professional boxers at the beginning of the nineteenth century were to a great extent rough fellows, who were only after money, or at best notoriety. But Conan Doyle has recently given us in his Rodney Stone a masterly description of a blacksmith who was a good husband and a skilful workman, yet even in his old age could not resist an invitation to take part in a public prize fight. What primarily influenced this man was a deep-rooted manly enjoyment of fighting for the fight’s sake, and many Greek and English athletes have felt as he did. Another primitive method of fighting is by throwing missiles; even monkeys throw stones, dry branches, and fruit. Miss Romanes’s ape was very sensitive to ridicule. One day the tailoress came into the room, and a nut was given to the monkey to open with his hammer, as he knew how to do. The nut proved to be empty, and the woman could not help laughing at the monkey’s blank expression. “He then became very angry, and threw at her everything he could lay his hands on—first the nut, then the hammer, then a coffee-pot, which he seized out of the grate, and lastly all his own shawls. He threw things with great force and precision by holding them in both hands and extending his long arms well back over his head before projecting the missile, standing erect the while.”[371] The child begins very early to throw things to the ground, as we have seen, and seems to delight in watching their motion as well as in the noise. Later the child turns the skill thus acquired to the account of his fighting instinct, and in this way genuine offensive throwing begins as soon as he is able to tumble about alone. The enjoyment is doubled when it becomes not only a question of hitting the enemy, but of dodging his missiles as well. The prettiest and most harmless form of such sport is snowballing; but also fruit, cherry stones, clods of earth, pebbles, hay in the meadows, pillows from the beds, etc., all serve the same purpose. Some games of ball, too, are of a similar character. K. Weinhold tells us how he as a boy played against his comrades with a six-pound cannon ball. The wonder is that no bones were broken. “Less fortunate,” he continues, “were the islanders who indulged in this mad folly, for in their case it was punished. On a holiday the contest between boatmen and landsmen was begun, and after several days the latter retired as victors. The boatmen, stung by the taunts of their conquerors, took counsel with their friend Hard Grimkelssohn, who advised them to make balls of horn and challenge the shore people to another game. That evening six of the latter lay dead, while the boatmen lost not a single man.”[372] In many ball games, however, the players do not themselves catch the ball, which is sent to a base or home, as in the English game of football. Behind each party is a base consisting of two upright posts and a connecting