(_c_) This game is somewhat of a cumulative story, having for its finish the making angry and tormenting of a mother. All the versions point to this. One interesting point, that of milk-pails, is, it will be seen, gradually losing ground in the rhymes. Milk-pails were pails of wood suspended from a yoke worn on the milkmaid’s shoulders, and these have been giving place to present-day milk-cans. Consequently we find in the rhymes only four versions in which milk-pails are used. In two versions even the sense of milking-can has been lost, and the South Shields version, sent me by little Miss Blair, has degenerated into “male-scales,” a thoroughly meaningless phrase. The Cowes version (Miss Smith) has arrived at “wash-pan.” The “burden” of the Chirbury version is “a rea, a ria, a roses,” and the Sheffield version is also remarkable: the “I, O, OM” refers, probably, to something now forgotten, or it may be the “Hi, Ho, Ham!” familiar in many nursery rhymes. The game seems to point to a period some time back, when milking was an important phase of the daily life, or perhaps to the time when it was customary for the maids and women of a village to go to the hilly districts with the cows (summer shealings) for a certain period of time. The references to domestic life are interesting. The scarcity of beds, the best or feather bed, and the children’s bed, seeming to be all those available. The feather bed is still a valued piece of household furniture, and is considered somewhat of the nature of a heirloom, feather beds often descending from mother to daughter for some generations. I have been told instances of this. Gregor, in _Folk-lore of East of Scotland_, p. 52, describes the Scottish box-bed. The “truckle bed” and “footman’s bed” probably refers to the small bed under a large one, which was only pulled out at night for use, and pushed under during the day. Illustrations of these beds and the children’s bed are given in old tales. The proximity of the pig-sty to the house is manifest. The mention of washing-tubs calls to mind the large wooden tubs formerly always used for the family wash. Before the era of laundresses washing-tubs must have constituted an important part of the family plenishing. Washing in the rivers and streams was also a thing of frequent occurrence, hot water for the purpose of cleansing clothes not being considered necessary, or in many cases desirable. Chambers gives a version of the game (_Popular Rhymes_, p. 36) and also Newell (_Games_, p. 166). Another version from Buckingham is given by Thomas Baker in the _Midland Garner_, 1st ser., ii. 32, in which the mother desires the daughter to “milk in the washing-tub,” and the words also appear very curiously tacked on to the “Three Dukes a-riding” game from Berkshire (_Antiquary_, xxvii. 195), where they are very much out of place. Mineral, Animal, and Vegetable