THE WILD ANIMALS AT PLAY 15 



us human children seem to have been played before 

 the dry land was, when there were only water babies 

 in the world, for certainly the fish never learned " fol- 

 low my leader" from us. Nor did my young bees 

 learn from us their game of "prisoners' base" which 

 they play almost every summer noontime in front of 

 the hives. And what is the game the flies play about 

 the cord of the drop-light in the centre of the kitchen 

 ceiling? 



One of the most interesting animal games that I 

 ever saw was played by a flock of butterflies on the 

 very top of Mount Hood, whose pointed snow-piled 

 peak looks down from the clouds over the whole vast 

 State of Oregon. 



Mount Hood is an ancient volcano, eleven thou- 

 sand two hundred twenty-five feet high. Some seven 

 thousand feet or more up, we came to " Tie-up 

 Rock " the place on the climb where the glacier 

 snows lay before us and we were tied up to one an- 

 other and all of us fastened by rope to the guide. 



From this point to the peak, it was sheer deep 

 snow. For the last eighteen hundred feet we clung to 

 a rope that was anchored on the edge of the crater 

 at the summit, and cut oar steps as we climbed. 



Once we had gained the peak, we lay down behind 

 a pile of sulphurous rock, out of the way of the cut- 

 ting wind, and watched the steam float up from the 

 crater, with the widest world in view that I ever 

 turned my eyes upon. 



