176 GROWTH AKD DECLINE OF CULTURE. 



shown on the Assyrian bas-reliefs, the throwing-cudgel of the 

 Egyptian fowler, the African lissdn or curved club, the iron 

 hungamiinga of the Tibbus, but without clear proof being 

 brought forward that these weapons, or the boomerang-like 

 iron projectiles of the Neam Nam, have either of the great 

 peculiarities of the boomerang, the sudden swerving from the 

 apparent Hne of flight, or the returning to the thrower. Mr. 

 Samuel Ferguson has written a very learned and curious paper^ 

 on supposed European analogues of the boomerang, in con-, 

 eluding which he remarks, not untruly, that "many of the 

 foregoing inferences will, doubtless, appear in a high degree 

 speculative." As might be expected, he makes the most of 

 the obscure description of the cateia, set down about the be- 

 ginning of the seventh centmy by Bishop Isidore of Seville.^ 

 But what is far more to the purpose, Mr. Ferguson seems to 

 have made trial of a curved club of ancient shape, and some 

 hammer- and cross- shaped v/eapons, such as may have been 

 used in Europe, and to have made them fly with something of 

 the returning flight of the boomerang. On the whole, it would 

 be rash to assert that the principle of the boomerang was quite 

 unknown in the Old World. Another remarkable weapon, the 

 bolas, seems to be isolated in the particular region of South 

 America where it was found in use, and was therefore very 

 likely invented there ; but its principle is known also among 

 the Esquimaux, whose thin thongs, weighted with bunches of 

 ivory knobs, are arranged to wind themselves round the bird 

 they are thrown at, in much the same way as the much stouter 

 cords, weighted at the ends with two or three heavy stone balls, 

 which form the holas of the Southern continent. 



A few more instances may be given, rather for their quaint- 

 ness than for their importance. The Australians practise an 

 ingenious art in bee-hunting, which I have not met with any- 

 where else. The hunter catches a bee, and gums a piece of 



' S. Ferguson, in Trans. R. I. A. ; Dublin, 1843, vol. xix. 



^ "Est enim genus Gallic! teli ex materia quam maxime lenta, quae jaeta qui- 

 dem non longe propter gravitatem evolat : sed qu6 pervenit, vi nimia perfrin- 

 git : quod si ab artifice mittatur : rursum redit ad eum, qui misit," etc. (Isid. 

 Origg. xviii. 7.) 



