INSTINCT AND REASON 



247 



133. Play. 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. Squir- 



FIG. 154. Nestlings of the American bittern. The four members of the brood of 

 which two are shown in Fig. 153, two weeks old, when they showed marked fear 

 of man. Photograph by F. M. CHAPMAN, Meridian, N. Y., June 8, 1898. (Per- 

 mission of Macmillan Company, publishers of Bird-Lore.) 



rels play in the trees. Perhaps it is the play impulse which 

 leads the shrike or butcher-bird to impale small birds and 

 beetles on the thorns about its nest, a ghastly kind of orna- 

 ment that seems to confer satisfaction on the bird itself. 

 The talking of parrots and their imitations of the sounds 

 they hear seem to be of the nature of play. The greater 



