Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 17, 1906.djvu/100

 88 Collectanea.

both players extend and approach and separate their hands alternately. The four loops by which the string is held saw across and through each other in the centre. Fig. 14 (p. 87).

I learn from Dr. Haddon that there is an Indian sawing-trick (known in Delhi and Lucknow) precisely similar to that just described, but set up from Opening A. The description is as follows :

Opening A. Pass the radial thumb string proximal to the central crossed strings and distal to the ulnar little finger string, and place it on a hook or another person's finger. Hold the centre of the ulnar little finger string in the mouth or place on another person's finger, release thumbs and little fingers and make a sawing movement.

This trick is called "Sawing Wood" or "Scissors" (Qainchi). It was communicated to Dr. Haddon by Mr. Zia Uddin Ahmad of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Fig. 15.

This figure is Protean. Fig. 150 represents the most simple arrangement of the strings, and there are four varieties of this. Fig. x'^b shows a symmetrical arrangement of one of these varieties, and Fig. \^c another common disposition of the strings.

The boy who showed me the above spoke of it as being a game of small children in New York. He called it Cat's Cradle, though he knew no other figures. Per contra, I find in De