COMPARISONS AND REFERENCES.
The object of the following notes is to exhibit, in a clear manner, the extent of the correspondence between the games of American children and those belonging to children in other countries. This volume is not intended to include all games of children, but (with some exceptions in favor of certain amusements which possess interest as folk-lore) only such as are played with words or quaint formulas. Of games of this class, we find in the collections very few known to children in Great Britain, and possessing European diffusion, which are not represented in this series by independent American versions (see No. 160, note, end). With these exceptions, the British game-formulas to which American usage does not offer equivalents are local and of trifling interest. The references given below may, therefore, be considered as a comparative account of English children's games in general.
The coincidence which this comparison shows to exist between English and German games is very close. Taking three German collections—belonging respectively to Switzerland (Rochholz), to Suabia (Meier), and to Schleswig-Holstein (Handelmann)—and leaving out of account songs and ballads, we have about eighty games played with rhymes or formulas. Of this number, considering only cases of obvious identity, we estimate that forty-five have equivalents in the present series, and thirty-three are not so paralleled. But of the latter class, six are known to have been played in Great Britain, while thirteen others appear to be variations of types represented in this collection. Of the small number remaining, few seem to be ancient, it being impossible to point out more than three or four really curious games which are not played also in an English form. This agreement cannot be explained by inheritance from a common stock, a theory which research has also discredited in other branches of folk-lore. The relationship is only a degree less near in other countries; thus, in a collection of Spanish games belonging to Catalonia (Maspons y Labrós), we find that, out of thirty-eight games, twenty-five have English equivalents.