"The first syllable of this word is undoubtedly the verb curr, to sit on the houghs or hams. The second may be from Teut. kudde, a flock; kudd-en, coire, convenire, congregari, aggregari; kudde wijs, gregatim, catervatim, q. 'to curr together.'

"The same game is called Harry Hurcheon in the North of Scotland, either from the resemblance of one in this position to a hurcheon, or hedge-hog, squatting under a bush; or from the Belg. hurk-en, to squat, to hurkle.”

SAYS Mr. Steevens, seems to have been a game. In an old collection of satyres, epigrams, &c., I find it enumerated among other pastimes: "At shove-groate, venter-point, or crosse and pile,

At leaping o'er a Midsummer bone-fier,
Or at the drawing Dun out of the myer."

See Reed's edit. of Shakspeare, 8vo.
Lond. 1803, vol. xx. p. 51.

So in "The Dutchesse of Suffolke," 4to.
Lond. 1631, Signat. E 3:
"Well done, my masters, lends your hands,
Draw Dun out of the ditch,

THERE was a sport entitled "Draw Gloves," of which however I find no description. The following jeu d'esprit is found in a curious collection of poetical pieces, entitled "A Pleasant Grove of New Fancies," 8vo. Lond. 1657, p. 56:

Draw Gloves.
"At Draw Gloves wee'l play,
And prethee let's lay

A wager, and let it be this:
Who first to the summe
Of twenty doth come,

Shall have for his winning a kisse.” See also Herrick's "Hesperides," p. 111.

and the usual number of men or pieces. The peculiarity of the game depended on the mode of first placing the men on the points. If one of the players threw some particular throw of the dice, he was disabled from bearing off any of his men, and therefore fayled in winning the game; and hence the appellation of it.

"In Gifford's note on the above passage of Jonson it is said, 'It was a kind of tric-trac, which was meant by tick-tack in the same passage.' Mr. Douce refers also to the English translation of Rabelais. Strutt mentions it, and refers to the same MS., but gives no particulars. Sports and Pastimes, p. 283."

MR. STRUTT considers this as one of the most ancient games played with the ball that require the assistance of a club or bat. "In the reign of Edward III. the Latin name Cambuca was applied to this pastime, and it derived the denomination, no doubt, from the crooked club or bat with which it was played; the bat was also called a bandy from its being bent, and hence the game itself is frequently written in English bandy-ball.

"It should seem that Goff was a fashionable game among the nobility at the commencement of the seventeenth century, and it was one of the exercises with which Prince Henry, eldest son of James I., occasionally amused himself, as we learn from the following anecdote recorded by a person who was present: At another time playing at Goff, a play not unlike to pale-maille, whilst his

schoolmaster stood talking with another, and marked not his highness warning him to stand further off; the prince, thinking he had gone aside, lifted up his goff-club to strike the ball; mean tyme one standing by said to him, Beware that you hit not master Newton, wherewith he, drawing back his hand, said, Had I done so I had but paid my debts."

Dr. Jamieson derives Golf from the Dutch kolf, a club. Wachter derives it from klopp-en, to strike.

Golf and foot-ball appear to have been prohibited in Scotland by King James II. in 1457; and again in 1481, by James IV. The ball used at this game was stuffed very hard with feathers. Strutt says that this game is much practised in the North of England; and Dr. Jamieson, that it is a common game in Scotland.(1)

(1) See Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," p. 8; Jamieson's "Etym. Dict." in voce.

In the Gentleman's Magazine for February, 1795, p. 145, mention is made of Shinty Match, a game also peculiar to North Britain, something similar to the Golf.

Dr. Jamieson calls "SHINTY an inferior

species of Golf, generally played at by young people." He adds, " In London this game is called Hackie. It seems to be the same which is designed Not in Gloucest.; the name being borrowed from the ball, which is made of a knotty piece of wood. Gl. Grose." Etym. Dict. v. SHINTY.

A GOOSE, whose neck is greased, being suspended by the legs to a cord tied to two trees or high posts, a number of men on horseback riding full-speed attempt to pull off the head, which if they accomplish they win the goose. This has been practised in Derbyshire within the memory of persons now living.

Mr. Douce says, his worthy friend Mr. Lumisden informed him that when young he remembered the sport of "riding the goose"

at Edinburgh. A bar was placed across the road, to which a goose, whose neck had been previously greased, was tied. At this the candidates, as before mentioned, plucked.

A print of this barbarous custom may be seen in the "Trionfi, &c., della Venetia." See also Menestrier, "Traité des Tournois," p. 346.

In "Paullinus de Candore," p. 264, we read: "In Dania, tempore quadragesimali Belgæ rustici in Insula Amack, Anserem