figures with a string held stretched between the two hands (cat’s cradle) affords entertainment for hours at a time to the Eskimos in Baffin Land. They call the game _ajarorpoq_.[227] It is found also in Australia, Borneo, New Guinea, New Zealand, and Java, where, Schmetz says, the children play it too. Finally, I may add that von Hartmann classes much of the ladies’ fancy work with such play, inasmuch as it does not possess artistic value, and its intrinsic worth is out of all proportion to the effort expended.[228] 5. _Throwing Plays_ Whereas the forms of movement-play which we have been considering are more or less connected, throwing is regarded by many as a special instinct. Preyer says that it is “undoubtedly instinctive.” When monkeys get excited they throw anything they can get hold of; and a five-year-old idiot whose brain structure was much like that of a monkey did the same thing when he was teased.[229] In any case, throwing is certainly an interesting phenomenon, which, if monkeys did not indulge in it, we should claim as a prerogative of the human race. At first it was defensive, the missile serving at a distance as a substitute for one of the bodily members, and consequently first gave the idea of a machine, if we take the word μηχανή in its more general sense. The next step, and one which monkeys can not attain, is the fashioning of the projectile into a work of art. Accidental dropping of objects seems to introduce the idea of throwing to the infant mind, and what we have called visual play furthers its development, since the child from watching the falling object comes to repeat the process intentionally, and so learns to throw. The following report of Preyer’s traces this progression: “Thirtieth week: Frequent dropping, but still not noticed. Thirty-fourth week: The child looks after the object dropped, but indifferently. Forty-seventh week: The child throws down anything that is given him after playing with it a little, and often looks after it. On one occasion he threw a book on the floor eight times in succession, and his pursed-up lips indicated serious determination.”[230] Further developments were hampered by the interference of his parents. Sigismund, too, gives valuable notes, and adds some luminous remarks on the biological and psychological significance of such play. “All children like to throw,” he says, “and are often blamed for it very unjustly. We should remember that although some window panes may be endangered by such play, it lays the foundation for man’s supremacy over the other animals, and that by means of it muscles are gradually developed and strengthened. We should rejoice, then, with the children when a stone goes a long way or bounds into the water with a splash. When children get out of doors the desire to throw something takes possession of them; even the yearling picks up pebbles and delights to roll them. The older boys stand on the coping or carriage block, and are engrossed in testing