REFLEXES, INSTINCT, AND REASON 



435 



live snake. He was staggered by the sight, but after a while 

 lie went back and looked again, to repeat the experience. Each 

 wild animal has its special instinct of resistance or method of 

 keeping off its enemies. The stamping of a sheep, the kicking 

 of a horse, the running in a circle of a hare, and the skulking 

 in a circle of some foxes, are examples of this sort of instinct. 



FIG. 269. Nestlings of the American bittern, two of a brood of four birds one week old, 

 at which age they showed no fear of man. (Photograph by E. N. Tabor, Meridian, 

 N. Y., May 31, 1898. Permission of Macmillan Co., publishers of "Bird Lore.") 



The play instinct is developed in numerous animals. To 

 this class belong the wrestlings and mimic fights of young 

 dogs, bear cubs, seal pups, and young beasts generally. Cats 

 and kittens play with mice. Squirrels play in the trees. Per- 

 haps it is the play impulse that leads the shrike or butcher bird 

 to impale small birds and beetles on the thorns about its nest, 

 a ghastly kind of ornament that seems to confer satisfaction 

 on the bird itself. The talking of the parrots and their imita- 

 tions of the sounds they hear seem to be of the nature of play. 

 The greater their superfluous energy the more they will talk. 

 Much of the singing of birds, and the crying, calling, and howling 



