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Rh varieties are used, but those for hunting have usually only two stones, and not three. They sometimes throw the single bola at the adversary, rope and all, but generally they prefer to strike at his head with it.

Assuming a difficulty in securing a ball of stone in a leather case, and that therefore it would be necessary to fasten it by means of a thong, some channelling of the surface would become a necessity; and the natural tendency of savages to decorate their weapons might lead to regular circular discs being left between the channels on the ball, and even to these discs being engraved in patterns, that next the cord being, as in Fig. 352, left undecorated. In the Christy Collection is a bola formed of a polished red spherical stone, mounted in such a manner as to show a considerable portion of its surface, which has evidently been regarded as too handsome to be entirely concealed by the leather. Mr. C. H. Read suggests that these ornamented balls were entirely covered with raw hide, which was allowed to dry, the ends or edges being tightly tied. When dry the circles over the knots were cut out so as to display the ornament and leave a solid binding round the stone to which a thong might be attached.

These bola stones are sometimes wrought so as to present a number of rounded protuberances. Of this kind there are specimens in the Christy Collection and in that of the late Mr. J. Bernhard Smith. Even if the use of the bolas or the single bola were unknown, there is a form of military flail or "morning star," a sort of modification of the staff-sling, though the stone never quits the cord by which it is attached to the staff, for which such balls as these might serve. A mediæval weapon of this kind, in the Meyrick Collection, consists of a staff, to which is attached by a chain a ball of wood with numerous projecting iron spikes. The citizens of London will be familiar with the same weapon in the hands of the giant Gog or Magog at Guildhall. The Calmucks, Mongols, and Chinese, still use a flail of this sort, with an iron perforated ball about two pounds in weight attached to the end of the thong. Substituting one of these stone balls for the spiked morning-star, and a leather thong carefully adjusted in the channels of the stone for the chain, a most effective form of weapon for close encounters would result. Among the North American tribes a somewhat