Cat & Mice or Holes & Traps

(translated: Cat and Mice - A Fun Race)

Probably from the 1950s. A simple roll-and-move game where up to 5 players are mice (small pottery balls), trying to reach the end of a tilted course (with holes for spaces, similar to Hänsel und Gretel: Ein Märchenspiel), one player is the cat (a larger ball), allowed to move in both directions, trying to catch all mice.

The cat never can fall through the holes, the mice can (and have to start over).

The board is raised and has a track on it. Each point along the track is a hole. Some holes are bigger than others. The playing pieces are circular, like a ball.

One player is a cat, the others are mice. Everyone moves along the track by a die roll. The mice must escape from the cat player who has a big advantage. If a mouse player lands on one of the bigger holes then it will fall through the hole and out of the game. The cat playing ball is too large to fall through a hole so he doesn't mind which space he lands on.

The cat wins if all the mice are caught or the mouse who gets to the end of the track first, wins