506 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 
result that the doctor was ultimately speared (non-fatally) 
a the knee. J had watched this individual pretty carefully, 
and saw him ward off two other spears. aimed at his chest 
and lower trunk, when struck. As soon as he fell, his 
friends surrounded him, and with their big shields kept his 
aggressors at bay until he could be removed in safety to his 
own camp. Of course, any interference on our part was out 
of the question, it taking us all our time to get cover behind 
neighbouring trees, out of the way of the spears and 
boomerangs. Everything, however, was amicably settled by 
nightfall, when all parties joined in the social, which ex- 
tended into the early hours. 
Discriminative Games.—(a) Hide and Seek constitute a 
series of very commonly played games, even by adults, that 
which is hidden being either a person or thing. In the 
former case, as practised in the N.W.-Central districts, there 
may be as many as three seekers in it, these covering their 
eyes with the hands, or putting their heads with eyes 
shut close to the ground, while the others hide themselves. 
If they cannot find those who are concealed, they often make 
a whistling sound as a sign of defeat. The Kokominni 
blacks call this game paliwan; but with them the object of 
the boy who hides is to get “ home ” if he can without being 
caught “by the others who are looking for him. Where a 
thing is hidden, this is generally concealed in any small 
piece of level sandy ground, a circular space of from 1 to 2 
feet in diameter being roughly marked out, and carefully 
smoothed over with the hand; the object of the players 
squatting or kneeling around is to try and find it. Cor- 
rectly speaking, the hidden article is the lens, obtained after 
ccoking, from the eye of a fish (Palmer R., Cairns, Penne- 
father R., Cape Bedford, Tully R.), opossum (Cairns, Boulia, 
and Rockhampton districts), rat, or wallaby (Boulia D.), 
Where these do not happen to be available, it may be sub- 
stituted by a body-louse, small seed, or anything else differ- 
ing from the constituents of the subjacent soil, so long as it 
is of comparatively minute size. At Marlborough I have 
seen the opossum lens rubbed between the hands to make it 
look a bit dirty, and so rendered more difficult to find. The 
actual method of hiding the lens varies slightly. On the 
Palmer it is held between the thumb and forefinger, the 
palm, turned upwards, being filled with sand; the latter, 
slipping between the interstices of the fingers, is jerked in 
all directions over the circular space, the lens being suddenly 
dropped during the course of the movement. The usual. 
method elsewhere, however, is to pick up the lens together 
