In the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for December 1849, in a review of the _Life of Shirley_, it is stated that in many parts of England the old game of “Thread the Needle” is played to the following words, which refer to the gate of the city of Hebron, known as the “needle’s eye.” How many miles to Hebron? Three score and ten. Shall I be there by midnight? Yes, and back again. Then thread the needle, &c. The game is also described in _Notes and Queries_, iv. 141, as played in the same way as above, and the writer adds there are subsequent evolutions by which each couple becomes in succession the eye of the needle. Howly A street game played by boys in a town, one of them hiding behind a wall or house-end, and crying “Howly” to the seekers.—Atkinson’s _Cleveland Glossary_. See “Hide and Seek.” Huckie-buckie down the Brae Children in Lothian have a sport in which they slide down a hill, sitting on their hunkers (Jamieson). The well-known custom at Greenwich is probably the same game, and there are examples at Tumbling Hill, a few miles from Exeter, at May Pole Hill, near Gloucester, and other places. Huckle-bones Holloway (_Dict. of Provincialisms_) says that the game is called “Huckle-bones” in East Sussex and “Dibs” in West Sussex. Parish (_Dict. of Sussex Dialect_) mentions that huckle-bones, the small bone found in the joint of the knee of a sheep, are used by children for playing the game of “Dibs;” also Peacock’s _Manley and Corringham Glossary_. Barnes (_Dorset Glossary_) says, “A game of toss and catch, played mostly by two with five dibs or huckle-bones of a leg of mutton, or round pieces of tile or slate.” Halliwell’s description is clearly wrong. He says it was a game formerly played by throwing up the hip-bone of some animal, on one side of which was a head of Venus and on the other that of a dog. He who turned up the former was the winner (_Dictionary_). Miss J. Barker writes that “Huckle-bones” is played in Hexham; and Professor Attwell (Barnes) played the game as a boy, and is still a proficient in it; he played it recently for my benefit with his set of real huckle-bones (A. B. Gomme); and see _Notes and Queries_, 9th ser., iv. 378, 379.