arm of the task itself. It has been one of the sunniest, happiest
lines possible to follow, attended invariably with smiling faces and
laughter on the part of old or young, native or foreign, the peasant
people or those more sophisticated.

[Sidenote: Bibliographical research and results]

The bibliographical research has covered a wide field. Heretofore the
principal sources in English for the collector of games have been the
invaluable and scholarly folklore compilations of Mr. William Wells
Newell (_Songs and Games of American Children_) and Mrs. Alice B.
Gomme (_Traditional Games_ in the _Dictionary of British Folk Lore_).
The earlier British collection by Strutt (_Sports and Pastimes of the
English People_) has also been a source of great value. In the United
States considerable collecting and translating of games have from time
to time been done by the physical training magazine, _Mind and Body_.
For all modern athletic games an invaluable service has been rendered
by Messrs. A. G. Spalding and Brothers in the publication, since 1892,
of the _Spalding Athletic Library_, under the direction of Mr. A. G.
Spalding and Mr. James E. Sullivan. The author is greatly indebted to
all of these sources. In addition, hundreds of volumes have been
consulted in many fields including works of travel, reports of
missionaries, etc. This has resulted in games from widely scattered
sources, including European countries, the Orient, the Arctic regions,
and the North American Indians. While in such a mass of material
there are some games that are found in almost all countries, so that
one is continually meeting old friends among them, a very considerable
harvest of distinctive material has been gathered, eloquent of
environment, temperamental, or racial traits. Such, among many others,
are the Japanese Crab Race; the Chinese games of Forcing the City
Gates, and Letting Out the Doves; the Korean games with flowers and
grasses; the North American Indian games of Snow Snake and Rolling
Target; and the poetic game of the little Spanish children about the
Moon and Stars, played in the boundaries marked by sunshine and
shadow.

[Sidenote: Standard Material]

But the object of the book has been by no means to present only novel
material. There is an aristocracy of games, classic by all the rights
of tradition and popular approval, without which a collection would be
as incomplete as would an anthology of English ballads without _Robin
H