table and wrote the name of the donor upon each. At about eleven o'clock the schoolmaster would produce a large punchbowl, and as he took up each egg he read the name, and broke the egg into the bowl. Eggs at that time were sold at three for a penny."—(W. B., Bodmin, W. Antiquary, March, 1884.)
In the eastern part of the county at the beginning of Lent a straw figure dressed in cast-off cothes, and called "Jack-o'-lent," was not long since paraded through the streets, and afterwards hung. Something of this kind is common on the Continent.
The figure is supposed to respresent Judas Iscariot. A slovenly ragged person is sometimes described as a "Jack-o'-lent."
(To be continued.)
CHILDREN'S AMUSEMENTS.
By the Rev. Walter Gregor.
THE following amusements for infants have, with their rhymes, been gathered, with few exceptions, from the north-east of Scotland.
Some of the forms of the rhymes differ but little from each other, so little that it may be deemed useless to have collected, and printed them. My only excuse for doing so is, that the smallest scrap of folk-lore has to me a sacredness that makes it worthy of preservation.
So far as my limited means have allowed, I have made reference to the games and their formulæ as found in other countries. Without doubt Holland, Germany, Denmark, and the Scandinavian Peninsula would afford much closer resemblances in the formulæ than the Neo-Latin nations. My distance from libraries containing the necessary books of reference has prevented me from entering to any extent on this interesting point. Some one else may take up the subject.
