SECTION EF. 
ETHNOLOGY: 
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 
By Waxrer E. Roru, B.A., M.R.CS., &c., Late Demy of 
Magdalen College, Oxford. 
GAMES, SPORTS, AND AMUSEMENTS OF THE 
NORTHERN QUEENSLAND ABORIGINALS.* 
Av the very outset, I may be allowed to express regret 
that the classification of the subject-matter which I have 
adopted is only tentative, though, on the other hand, it has 
been found to answer the purpose of allowing the’ many 
different methods of recreation and amusement to be 
arranged in certain well-defined groups. These groups, 
without any attempt at placing them in their order of origin 
and development, or relative importance, may be briefly 
noted as follows:—Imaginative games, as the name implies, 
deai with tales, legends, and other fancies of the imagina- 
tion. Realistic ones include the pleasures derivable from 
actual objects of nature, organic as well as inorganic; the 
same feelings which prompted me as a little boy to catch 
flies and keep them alive in specially constructed paper 
boxes, to splash the water about whenever I had a chance in 
the bathroom, or to have a slide so often as any convenient 
stretch of mud or ice presented itself. Imitative games con- 
stitute far and away the largest category, and may be again 
subdivided according as they deal with objects and 
phenomena of nature, cr with human actions. The former 
may be represented by means of attitudes and movements, 
by string, finger-prints, and sand-pictures, and by’ pigments. 
The latter can be discussed according as they refer to matters 
* This address forms the major portion of a ‘Scientific Bulletin 
subsequently issued by the Queensland Government as a Parlia- 
mentary Paper (C.A.8.—1902). Several illustrations are now 
introduced which it was not considered desirable should be shown 
to the mixed audience -before whom the address was originally 
delivered. The Hon. the Home Secretary, Mr. J. F. G. Foxton, 
ee given permission for the reproduction of these illustra- 
ions. 
