Playground; gymnasium.
The ground is marked off with two goals at opposite ends by parallel lines drawn entirely across it. The space between the lines should measure from thirty to fifty or more feet. One player is chosen for hunter, who stands in the center. The other players are named in groups from various animals; thus there will be several lions, several tigers, etc. These groups are divided so that part stand in one goal and part in the other, the number of players being equal in each goal when the game opens.
The hunter, standing in the center, calls the name of any animal he chooses, whereupon all of the players bearing that name must change goals. The hunter tries to catch them while they are in his territory. The first player caught must thereafter help the hunter in catching the others. The second player caught changes places with the first, the first one then being placed in a "cage" at one side of the playground and is out of the game. The game ends when the hunter has caught all of the animals.
There are several games very similar to this, but all of them have distinctive points that make them quite different in playing. In the present game the hunter has the advantage of chasing players running from both directions, but there is a comparatively small number of these, and he is placed at the disadvantage of not usually knowing just which players bear the names of certain animals.
HUNT THE FOX
20 to 60 or more players.
Playground; gymnasium.
The players stand in two parallel lines or files facing to the front, with about five feet distance between the files, and considerable distance between each two players in a file, so that the runners may have space to run between them. The head player of one file is a fox and the head player of the opposite file the hunter.
At a signal the fox starts to run, winding in and out from one side to the other of his file until he reaches the bottom, when he turns and comes up the opposite file. The fox is not obliged to run between each two players, but may skip any number that he wishes, and choose his own track. The hunter must follow in exactly the same trail, being obliged, should he make a mistake, to go back to the point at which he diverged from the path of the fox. If the fox succeeds in getting back to the head of the second file without being caught, he is considered to have escaped, and takes his place at the foot of his own file. Should he be caught by the hunter, he changes places with the latter, the hunter going to the foot of the fox's file, and the fox taking the hunter's original place at the head of his file. The second player in the fox's file, who should have moved up to the front to keep the lines even, is then fox for the next chase.