TIDDLEDY WINKS. A game played by any number of persons, singly or as partners, on a table covered with a thick cloth. Each player is provided with a set of six small counters and one large one, all of the same color, the different players having different colored sets. A little basket or cup, gen­erally of ivory or celluloid, is placed in the centre of the table, and each player ranges his small counters in front of him in a line about eight inches from it. The object of the game is to snap each of the smaller counters, by pressing on its edge with the larger one, so as to make it jump into the basket, and he wins who first gets all his counters in. The players take turns, but he who is successful in snapping a counter into the basket has the privilege of playing until he fails. After a player has played out all his counters from the starting line, he can play, when his turn comes, any of his counters wherever it may lie; but he is not allowed to touch any of his adversary's coun­ters, and if any of his own be cov­ered, and no other be available, he must wait until his adversary has uncovered one before he can play. A player may not intention­ally cover any of his opponents' counters. If a counter fall off the table, it must be replaced one inch from the edge where it fell off. Partners sit opposite each other, and may play each other's counters after they have left the starting line. Variation. The game may be played with several variations by marking, around the basket on the cloth with French chalk, a ring about four inches in diameter.

1. Any counter falling within this ring is to be considered dead, the winner being he who gets most counters into the basket.
2. Any counter falling within the ring must be returned to its place in the starting line, and played out by the player at his next turn.
3. If a counter fall within the ring, the next or any other player during that round, is at liberty, if he choose, to play it (instead of his own) to any part of the table he may consider best for himself. If it be not played thus, the player to metal conducts heat so well that it whom it belongs can play with it leads the heat away from the card at his next turn in the usual way.
4. Mark on the cloth any figure, such as a circle, a square, etc., and divide it into numbered segments or parts. Several games may be played with these, the counters scoring according to the number of the part they fall in.

Tiddledy Winks may be played also as a PROGRESSIVE GAME, on any number of tables.

John D. Champlin, Jr. and Arthur E. Bostwick • The Young Folks’ Cyclopædia of Games and Sports (Henry Holt & Co., New York) • 1890 • pages 725–726