writings a top humming on ice was used as a figure of rapid motion, and such comparisons are quite frequent with old German poets. This one, which incidentally proves that top cords were used at the time, is particularly striking: “Ez gewan ine topfe Vor geiseln solhen umbeswanc, Als sî mich âne minen danc Mit slegen umb und umle treip.”[248] In the Indian archipelago many stone[249] as well as wooden tops are used. Ten Kate gives illustrations of massive yellow painted wooden ones from there. The conical shape is about the same as with our own tops, but it lacks the horizontal grooves.[250] We have Andrée’s authority for the statement that children in Egypt, China, Siam, and Burmah are fond of spinning tops,[251] some Indians having top cords with three thongs.[252] Skipping stones on ice, as all boys love to do, is dignified in Bavaria and Austria into a game called “Eisschiessen,” in which heavy and carefully polished stone discs with a handle on top are slid over the frozen surface. Gutsmuths says:[253] “This game is played zealously in town and village, and the sturdy sportsmen allow no stress of weather, no untoward circumstance, to interfere with this their winter’s fun. Even the boys have their ice sticks to beguile the way to school. High and low take part in the healthful sport; and as in the Tyrol the village pastor must not fail in archery, so here he enters the lists as a matador of the icy course.” The Scotch use for the same purpose semispherical curling stones from twenty to thirty kilogrammes in weight, and provided with an iron or wooden handle.[254] Skipping and bouncing, which again call forth the impression of life depending on our own exertions, are prominent in the two very popular and primitive games in which the ball and disc show us another side of their Protean adaptability. One consists of throwing the ball to the floor with such force that it rebounds, and meeting it with a blow as it comes up so that it is struck back again, and the process is repeated indefinitely. Swiss girls sing a little verse in time with the strokes: “Bälleli ufe, Bällile abe Gump mir nit in nasse Grabe! Gump mir an en trockne Fleck, Gump mir nit in nasse Dreck,” etc.[255]