A boys’ game, played with round stones and a table-shaped block of stone.—Patterson’s _Antrim and Down Glossary_. Probably the same as Duckstone. Duck Dance [Music] —London (A. B. Gomme). I saw a ship a sailin’, A sailin’ on the sea, And oh, it was laden With pretty things for me [thee]. There were comfits in the cabin, And apples in the hold; The sails were made of silk, And the masts were made of gold. Four and twenty sailors That sat upon the deck, Were four and twenty white mice With chains about their necks. The captain was a duck, With a packet on his back; And when the ship began to move, The captain cried “Quack! quack!” —Northamptonshire, _Revue Celtique_, iv. 200; Halliwell’s _Nursery Rhymes_, No. ccclxxvii. (_b_) A number of little girls join hands and form a ring. They all jump round and sing the verses. The game ends by the girls following one of their number in a string, all quacking like ducks.—Northamptonshire. (_c_) Halliwell does not include it among his games, but simply as a nursery paradox. The tune given is that to which I as a child was taught to sing the verses as a song. We did not know it as a game. The “Quack, quack!” was repeated as another line to the notes of the last bar given, the notes gradually dying away (A. B. Gomme). Duck Friar The game of “Leap-frog.”—_Apollo Shroving_, 1627, p. 83. Ducks and Drakes A pastime in which flat stones or slates are thrown upon the surface of a piece of water, so that they may dip and emerge several times without sinking (Brockett’s _North Country Words_). “Neither cross and pile nor ducks and drakes are quite so ancient as hand dandy” (Arbuthnot and Pope, quoted in Todd’s _Johnson_). Halliwell gives the words used in the game both formerly and at the present day. If the stone emerges only once it is a duck, and increasing in the following order:— 2. A duck and a drake, 3. And a halfpenny cake, 4. And a penny to pay the old baker, 5. A hop and a scotch is another notch, 6. Slitherum, slatherum, take her. —Halliwell’s _Dictionary_. Hen-pen, Duck and mallard, Amen. —Somersetshire (Holloway’s _Dict. of Provincialisms_). A duck and a drake And a white penny cake. —Hampshire (Holloway’s _Dict. of Provincialisms_). A duck and a drake And a penny white cake, And a skew ball. —Peacock’s _Manley and Corringham Glossary_. Moor (_Suffolk Words and Phrases_) gives the names for the number of times the stone emerges, as (1) “a duck;” (2) “a duck an’ a drake;” if thrice, “a duck an’ a drake an’ a fi’epenny cake;” four times is “a duck an’ a drake an’ a fi’epenny cake, an’ a penny to pah the baker.” If more than four, “a duck,” “a duck an’ a drake,” &c., are added. These distinctions are iterated quickly to correspond in time as nearly as may be with the dips of the stone. A flattish stone is evidently the best for this sport.