This does not seem to be very likely, but strange customs often persist to an unexpected and almost inexplicable extent, and, if it be true, we may find in this and analogous customs some clues which may throw light upon the town tops.

The whipping-top has an ancient pedigree in Europe. In a work of the thirteenth century, Le Miracle de Sainct-Loys, the whipping-top (sabot) is mentioned '; and it is figured in the marginal paintings of English MSS. of the fourteenth century.'

Pliny refers to a top identical with the modern one, and specimens of such tops have been recovered from the ruins of Pompeii, and are still exhibited in the Museum of Naples. There are, as a matter of fact, several allusions in Latin and Greek authors to the whipping-top. The whipping-top is mentioned in an old MS. dating to about 500 B.C. A stranger of Atarne consulted Pittacus of Mitylene, one of the Seven Sages of Greece (651-569 B.C.), concerning a wife. The question was whether he should take a certain girl in his own rank of life, who had a fortune equal to his own, or a damsel of higher status and with more money. The sage told him to go to a group of boys who were playing at whipping-tops in the midst of a wide cross-road. As he approached them he heard one of the boys say to his fellow, "Whip the nearest one," and he accepted this as an oracle.

The oldest record is the discovery of Dr. Schliemann of terra-cotta tops in the so-called Third City of Troy, and at the present day the boys of Asia Minor still spin tops with whips.

When the traveller, Palgrave, was at Riadh, the capital

1 F. Dillaye, Les Jeux de la Jeunesse, Paris, 1885, p. 191.

2 J. Strutt, The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, 1801, book iv., chap. iv., P. 288.

of Wahabees in Central Arabia, he saw a boy spin a top on his left hand; he then took it on the forefinger of his right hand, which he held at full length above his head, and repeated the following formula:

"Not by my strength, nor cleverness, but by the strength of God and by the cleverness of God."

The whipping-top is known in the far East. Stewart Culin' in his beautifully illustrated work on Korean Games gives a plate of a couple of boys playing on the ice. The top is made of hard wood with an iron point; it is played with in winter, and usually spun on the frozen ground. The Koreans also share the humming-top with the Japanese, who call it "thunder-top."

The learned Chinese scholar, Gustav von Schlegel, of Leiden, many years ago' also distinguished between the various kinds of tops of Eastern Asia; the ordinary small top, driven with the whip (Tanzknöpfle, i. e., "dancebutton," is its name on the Neckar), the humming-top, the whistling-top which is thrown, and the top turned round with the fingers, etc. The first of these, according to Schlegel, spread from Europe through Java to Japan and Korea. Schlegel never saw it in China, nor is it mentioned in the older Chinese works.

The Japanese, according to Dr. R. Andree in an erudite paper on "The Game of Tops and its Distribution "' in a recent number of Globus, call the different sorts of top toklok. This word is not known in China, and in the old Japanese encyclopædias the name is tolo, which is the Dutch

1 Stewart Culin, Korean Games: with Notes on the Corresponding Games of China and Japan, Philadelphia, 1895.

2 Chinesiche Brauche und Spiele in Europa, Dissertation, Jena, 1869.

3 R. Andree, "Das Kreiselspielen und seine Verbreitung," Globus, lxix., 1896, p. 371.

tol which, together with its name, was introduced, says Schlegel, into Japan from Java. The Korean and Japanese humming-top corresponds exactly with that used in Java, and they are all made of bamboo. Culin figures a large number of Japanese tops of various kinds, many of which are very ingenious.

From Japan this top passed across to China, where in Amoy it is called kan-lok, which has the same signification as the Japanese tolo. The large humming-top is called in Amoy "earth-thunder," and in Canton "noisy goose." Thus the Bromtol of the Netherlands (the toupie bourdonnante of the French) has also wandered afar.

According to Bastian' the game of top is known in Burmah and Siam. Different kinds of tops are found in Malasia. The true humming-top and the whipping-top occur in the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago. A humming-top from the Straits Settlements in the British Museum is made of a section of bamboo, with an oblong opening in the side. Mr. C. H. Read also describes a Malay top (gasing) made in a lathe, and furnished with an iron peg at the base. It differs from the European top in having the string wound round the upper part. It was obtained at Selangor, Straits Settlements (Fig. 37, No. 6).

Riedel' found tops among the Uliassern, Serang, Kaisar, and Wetar. A simple wooden top driven by a whip was found by Dr. Max Weber' in the Island of Flores, and a spinning-top was collected by Dr. H. O. Forbes in Timorlaut. C. H. Read, who has described this (Fig. 37, No.

1 Bastian, Reise in Birma, p. 60; Reise in Siam, p. 324.

2 Riedel, Sluiken kroeshaarige Rassen, pp. 84, 131, 428, 433.

3 Max Weber, Ethnographische Notizen über Flores und Celebes, Leiden, 1890, pl. v., fig. 12.

C. H. Read, “Stone Spinning-Tops from Torres Straits, New Guinea," Journ. Anth. Inst., xvii., p. 85.

1, 2. Stone teetotum, or top from Mer (Murray Island), Torres Straits. 3. Wooden spinningtop from Timorlaut, Tenimber Islands. 4. Bamboo humming-teetotum or -top, Straits Settlements. 5. A similar top from Sakayana, Stewart Islands, West Pacific. 6. Malay peg-top from Selangor, Straits Settlements. The scale is between one-third and one-fourth.

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6) and other tops, points out various Malay influences that are seen in this island.

Ling Roth,' in his very valuable compilation on Bornean ethnography, records that the Sea-Dyak boys are very fond of playing with tops. He figures one on page 104, which is a double cone; the string is wound round the upper half, and it is evidently spun as a peg-top. The boys play games, but, with the exception of the top, the young men look upon games as beneath them.

There are very few recorded instances of tops from Oceania. A humming-top (Fig. 37, No. 5) is said to come from the Stewart Islands (Sakayana), which lie a little to the east of the Solomon Islands in the Western Pacific; it is made of bamboo, and is very similar to the one from the Straits Settlements, except that the lateral opening is small and of irregular shape.

Read confesses to having some doubts about the correctness of this locality, though the specimen came from the Godeffroy collection, where they have the best means of testing its accuracy.

Among the Polynesians I have come across two records only.

Hedley says:

"Spinning-tops I found to be a popular amusement on Nukulailai (Ellice Group, W. Pacific). Their tops were simply cone shells spun on their apices. A game was to spin two shells in a wooden dish, out of which, by rotating and colliding, the winner would knock the loser. The shells were spun either like a teetotum between the finger and thumb, or to give greater force one

'H. Ling Roth, The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo, 1896, i., pp. 103, 104, 367.

2 C. Hedley, "The Atoll of Funafuti, Ellice Group," Australian Museum, Sydney Memoir, iii., 1897.