Note 1014 — SCENE II.

cat and cat-stick] “Tip-cat, or perhaps more properly, the game of Cat, is a rustic pastime well known in many parts of the kingdom. Its denomination is derived from a piece of wood called a cat, with which it is played; the cat is about six inches in length, and an inch and a half or two inches in diameter, and diminished from the middle to both the ends, in the shape of a double cone; by this curious contrivance the places of the trap and of the ball are at once supplied, for when the cat is laid upon the ground, the player with his cudgel [or cat-stick] strikes it smartly, it matters not at which end, and it will rise with a rotatory motion, high enough for him to beat it away as it falls, in the same manner as he would a ball.” Sports, &c. (p. 86), by Strutt, who describes two of the various ways in which the game is played.—The “trap-stick” with which the Ward enters is, of course, the same as cat-stick; and “tippings” is a term of the game.