172 Dr. J. E. Dnerden on the 



tion, that of Professor Karl Groos, sees a deeper meaning in 

 all the activity and playfulness manifested by animals in 

 their youth. It is an instinct encouraged by natural selec- 

 tion. While play is usually indicative of good spirits, its 

 underlying meaning is not restricted to this. Rather it is 

 regarded by Professor Groos as so much instinctive prepara- 

 tory training and acquisition of experience for the serious 

 business of later life, and most students of animal behaviour 

 now accept this interpretation. The real meaning of infancy 

 and youth is that there may be time for pla}', wherein certain 

 functions may be practised before they are actually required. 

 According to this, play in animals generally is a mimic of 

 what the creature will have to perform when life commences 

 in earnest, an instinctive make-believe of what life's activities 

 will ultimately become. Such an idea is well exemplified as 

 one compares the playful activities of a kitten with the real 

 life of a cat under natural conditions. Professor Lloyd 

 Morgan ('Animal Behaviour,' p. 255) expresses it as fol- 

 lows : — " The play of youth, we may urge, depends on 

 instinctive propensities to experimentation in varied ways, 

 some of more general and others of more special import ; and 

 the value of such experimentation lies in the fact that it is a 

 means of acquiring, under circumstances more easy and less 

 dangerous than those of sterner life, experience and skill for 

 future use. In a word, play depends on instinctive propen- 

 sities of value in education." 



To understand the serious business of an Ostrich's life one 

 must consider the conditions under which the bird exists in 

 the wild state, for it was under these conditions that his 

 instincts as we see them in the domesticated state were 

 evolved. The wild Ostrich in Africa inhabits o^en or bushy 

 country infested with large Garni vora, such as lions and 

 leopards, and, like the herbivorous animals generally, he has 

 very inefficient means of protecting himself, having to depend 

 largely on flight. In fight the Ostrich can only kick and 

 struggle, actions of little value as a carnivore suddenly 

 springs upon him. 



When an Ostrich is suddenlv alarmed he rarelv starts 



