EDUCATION 247 



'and dexterity rush madly in circles, or race each other until they 

 have to lie down from exhaustion. Goats, sheep and chamois are 

 mountainous, rock-loving animals, accustomed to make high vertical 

 jumps from one ledge to another. Their kids and lambs practise 

 high jumps with an effect that is ludicrous when we see them on 

 flat ground suddenly springing into the air. Rocky-mountain 

 ,goats are said to be the most sure-footed of all animals ; they 

 are slow and deliberate in their movements, creeping along almost 

 invisible ledges on the face of precipitous cliffs. Their kids show 

 the same stealthy and careful movement, climbing to the roof of 

 their shelter, not by sudden jumps, but almost inch by inch. Gazelles 

 and antelopes which inhabit open plains practise long jumps when 

 they are young. Young dogs and wolves run round and round in 

 circles trying to head each other off. Most of the smaller cats are 

 accustomed to take almost vertical high jumps ; domestic kittens 

 can be seen to make sudden leaps in the air almost like young goats ; 

 my tame caracal kitten used to stop suddenly when running, gather 

 its legs together and make most comical vertical leaps in the air. 

 Caracals in the wild state prey chiefly on birds, which they stalk 

 until they flush them, and then leap in the air and catch them on 

 the wing. I have seen an adult caracal in the Zoological Gardens 

 stand under a shelf five feet above him, look up at it as if measuring 

 it with his eye, and then reach it by a straight vertical jump without 

 a run. Climbing animals, when they are young, practise climbing 

 assiduously. My tame hyrax, almost day by day, found some new 

 feat to attempt, and kept trying until it succeeded. One of its 

 first serious experiments was to climb the smooth leg of an iron 

 bedstead, which it did at first rather clumsily, choosing after 

 many vain efforts the leg that stood in a corner, and getting 

 up by pressing its back against the angle, of the wall and its feet 

 against the iron rod, much in the fashion that a mountain climber 

 ascends a "chimney." It soon became perfect in this method of 

 reaching the bed, and then proceeded to acquire the art of swarming 

 up the more difficult legs where there was no wall to help. The 

 smooth leg of a mahogany chair was then mastered. The polished 

 rails of a hot-water towel stand took a longer time, but the little 

 animal persevered until it had learned to climb the vertical bars 

 and walk along each of the horizontal bars, and finally to swing 

 down from one horizontal bar to another. One evening it dis- 

 covered that it was possible to ascend the vertical moulding that 

 surrounded a door. The moulding was about four inches across 



