se-ball there are four bases (including the home), and
the field is a diamond. In rounders the bases are five in number and the
field a pentagon in shape. There is a fair and foul hit in base-ball,
while in rounders no such thing is known. In rounders if a ball is
struck at and missed, or if hit so that it falls back of the striker, he
is out, while in base-ball the ball must be missed three times and the
third one caught in order to retire the striker; and a foul, unless
caught like any other ball, has no effect and is simply declared "dead."
In rounders the score is reckoned by counting one for each base made,
and some of the authorities say the run is completed when the runner has
reached the base next on the left of the one started from. In base-ball
one point is scored only when the runner has made every base in
succession and returned to the one from which he started. In rounders
every player on the side must be put out before the other side can come
in, while in base-ball from time immemorial the rule has been "three
out, all out." The distinctive feature of rounders, and the one which
gives it its name, is that when all of a side except two have been
retired, one of the two remaining may call for "the rounder;" that is,
he is allowed three hits at the ball, and if in any one of these he can
make the entire round of the bases, all the players of his side are
reinstated as batters. No such feature as this was ever heard of in
base-ball, yet, as said, it is the characteristic which gives to
rounders its name, and any derivation of that game must certainly have
preserved it.

If the points of resemblance were confined solely to these two games it
would prove nothing except that boys' ideas as well as men's often run
in the same channels. The very ancient game of bandy ball has its double
in an older Persian sport, and the records of literary and mechanical
invention present some curious coincidences. But, as a matter of fact,
every point common to these two, games was known and used long before in
other popular sports. That the ball was tossed to the bat to be hit was
true of a number of other games, among which were club ball, tip cat,
and cricket; in both of the latter and also in stool ball bases were
run, and in tip cat, a game of much greater antiquity than either base-
ball or rounders, the runner was out if hit by the ball when between
bases. In all of these games the striker was out if the ball when hit
was