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infant on the back to the full-grown, and the over-grown, boy, take more delight. I have never observed, however, as foreign books so often tell us, old men flying kites and boys merely looking on. The Japanese kites are made of tough paper pasted on a frame of bamboo sticks and are usually of a rectangular shape. Some of them, however, are made to represent children or men, several kinds of birds and animals, fans, etc. On the rectangular kites are pictures of ancient heroes or beautiful women, dragons, horses, monsters of various kinds, or huge Chinese characters. Among the faces most frequently seen on these kities are those of Yoshitsune, Kintaro, Yoritamo, Benkei, Daruma, Tomoye, and Hangaku. Some of the kites are six feet square. Many of them have a thin tense ribbon of whalebone at the top of the kite which vibrates in the wind, making a loud humming noise. The boys frequently name their kites Genji or Peike, and each contestant endeavours to destroy that of his rival. For this purpose the string for ten or twenty feet near the kite end is first covered with glue, and then dipped into pounded glass, by which the string becomes covered with tiny blades, each able to cut quickly and deeply. By getting the kite in proper position and suddenly sawing the string of his antagonist, the severed kite falls, to be reclaimed by the victor.
The Japanese tops are of several kinds, some are made of univalve shells, filled with wax. Those intended for contests are made of hard wood, and are iron-clad by having a heavy iron ring round as a sort of tire. The boys wind and throw them in a manner somewhat different from ours. The object of the player is to damage his adversary’s top or to make it cease spinning. The whipping top is also known and used. Besides the athletic sports of leaping, running, wrestling, slinging, the Japanese boys play at blind-man’s buff, hiding-whoop, and with stilts, pop-guns, and blow-guns. On stilts they play various games and run races. In the northern and western coast provinces, where the snow falls to the depth of many feet and remains long on the ground, it forms the material of
