This is the usual way of playing, and there is but little variation in the methods of the different versions. In some versions (Enbourne, Berks.; Maxey, Northants., and Bath) sleeves are tucked up previous to the pretended fight, and in one or two places sticks and stones are used; again in the Northamptonshire and Bath games, at “Present! Shoot! Bang! Fire!!” imitations are given of firing of guns before the actual fight takes place. In the Hants (H. S. May) and Lancashire (Mrs. Harley) versions, when the last verse is reached the players all join hands, form a ring, and dance round while they sing the last verse. In several versions too, when they sing “We don’t care for the magistrates,” or other persons of authority, the players all stamp their feet on the ground. In the Hurstmonceux version the children double their fists before preparing to fight. Some pretend to have swords to fight with, but the greater number use their fists. In most of the versions the players on both sides join in the refrain or chorus. (_d_) This game represents an attacking or invading party and the defenders. It probably owes its origin to the border warfare which prevailed for so long a period between Highlanders and Lowlanders of Scotland, the Scotch and English of the northern border counties, and in the country called the marches between Wales and England. Contests between different nationalities living in one town or place, as at Southampton and Nottingham, would also tend to produce this game. That the game represents this kind of conflict rather than an ordinary battle between independent countries is shown by several significant points. These are, the dialogue between the opposing parties before the fight begins, the mention of bread, ale, or other food, and more particularly the threat to appeal to the civil authorities, called in the different versions, magistrates, blue coat men, red coat men, highest men, policemen, and Cripple Dick. Such an appeal is only applicable where the opposing parties were, theoretically at all events, subordinate to a superior authority. The derision, too, with which the threat is received by the assailants is in strict accord with the facts of Border society. Scott in _Waverley_ and the _Black Dwarf_ describes such a raid, and the suggestion to appeal to the civil authority in lieu of a raid is met with the cry of such an act being useless. The passage from the _Black Dwarf_ is: “‘We maun tak the law wi’ us in thae days, Simon,’ answered the more prudent elder. ‘And besides,’ said another old man, ‘I dinna believe there’s ane now living that kens the lawful mode of following a fray across the Border. Tam o’ Whittram kend a’ about it; but he died in the hard winter.’ ‘Hout,’ exclaimed another of these discording counsellors, ‘there’s nae great skill needed; just put a lighted peat on the end of a spear, a hayfork, or siclike, and blaw a horn and cry the gathering word, and then it’s lawful to follow gear into England and