the bull-roarer.' If he knows the colony and the ways of the natives, he
knows that the blacks are celebrating their tribal mysteries. The
roaring noise is made to warn all women to keep out of the way. Just as
Pentheus was killed (with the approval of Theocritus) because he profaned
the rites of the women-worshippers of Dionysus, so, among the Australian
blacks, men must, at their peril, keep out of the way of female, and
women out of the way of male, celebrations.

The instrument which produces the sounds that warn women to remain afar
is a toy familiar to English country lads. They call it the bull-roarer.
The common bull-roarer is an inexpensive toy which anyone can make. I do
not, however, recommend it to families, for two reasons. In the first
place, it produces a most horrible and unexampled din, which endears it
to the very young, but renders it detested by persons of mature age. In
the second place, the character of the toy is such that it will almost
infallibly break all that is fragile in the house where it is used, and
will probably put out the eyes of some of the inhabitants. Having thus,
I trust, said enough to prevent all good boys from inflicting
bull-roarers on their parents, pastors, and masters, I proceed (in the
interests of science) to show how the toy is made. Nothing can be less
elaborate. You take a piece of the commonest wooden board, say the lid
of a packing-case, about a sixth of an inch in thickness, and about eight
inches long and three broad, and you sharpen the ends. When finished,
the toy may be about the shape of a large bay-leaf, or a 'fish' used as a
counter (that is how the New Zealanders make it), or the sides may be
left plain in the centre, and only sharpened towards the extremities, as
in an Australian example lent me by Mr. Tylor. Then tie a strong piece
of string, about thirty inches long, to one end of the piece of wood and
the bull-roarer (the Australian natives call it turndun, and the Greeks
called it [Greek]) is complete. Now twist the end of the string tightly