THE WILD ANIMALS AT PLAY 11 



enough, except for a twitch at the lips and a glint in 

 the eye. There is something of a smile about every 

 elephant's lips, to be sure, and fun is so contagious 

 that one should hesitate to say that he saw an ele- 

 phant laugh. But if that elephant did n't laugh, it 

 was not his fault. 



From the elephant to the inf usorian, the microscopic 

 animal of a single cell known as the paramcecium, is 

 a far cry to the extreme opposite end of the ani- 

 mal kingdom, worlds apart. Yet I have seen Para- 

 mcecium caudatum at play in a drop of water 

 under a compound microscope, as I have seen ele- 

 phants at play in their big bath-tub at the zoological 

 gardens. 



Place a drop of stagnant water under your micro- 

 scope and watch these atoms of life for yourself. In- 

 visible to the naked eye, they are easily followed on 

 the slide as they skate and whirl and chase one another 

 to the boundaries of their playground and back again, 

 first one of them "it," then another. They stop to 

 eat, they slow up to divide their single-celled bodies 

 into two cells, the two cells now two living creatures 

 where a moment before they were but one, both of 

 them swimming off immediately to feed and multiply 

 and play. 



Play seems to be as natural and as necessary to 

 the wild animals as it is to human beings. Like us 

 the animals play hardest while young, but as some 

 human children never outgrow their youth and love 



