Z A CURIOUS AINO TOY. 



with wheels, made by savages, led me to make a somewhat 

 careful sketch of it. The object bore the marks of con- 

 siderable age. 



Mr. Matsura believed it to be two hundred years old, 

 upon what grounds I did not clearly learn. The body of 

 the bird had a uniform thickness of 30 m ; apparently as if 

 it had been cut out of a board or plank. The head and neck 

 only were roughly modelled, tapering from the base of the 

 neck which was 18""* in thickness to half that thickness at 

 the end of the bill. The extreme length of the toy was 

 195 mm . The back and sides of the body had a series of 

 curved lines cut upon their surfaces to represent feathers, 



10. 2. 



an area (indicated by the dotted lines in the figure; hid- 

 den by the wheels, being left plain. There was no hole 

 or constriction in the neck to which a string might be at- 

 tached for the purpose of dragging the toy ; in the tail, 

 however, was a small hole running through from above, 

 evidently for this purpose. In this case the toy must have 

 been dragged backward. The wheels were thick and 

 clumsy, and irregularly ovate rather than circular. This 

 form of the wheel would cause the bird to hop up and down 

 when being dragged. The axle holding the wheels passed 

 through the body near the centre and consisted of a sim- 

 ple wooden pin having a thick head at one end and a per- 

 foration at the opposite end into which a small pin could 



