248 CHILDHOOD OF ANIMALS 



and projected an inch and a half from the wall. The hyrax straddled 

 this, pressing against the projecting edges with the palms of its 

 fore-paws and the soles of its feet, and got a good way up in a series 

 of little jumps. Its usual method of descending a pipe was to 

 turn round and come down head foremost, which was impossible 

 in this case. It suddenly stopped and shrieked until I came and 

 helped it down. It then at once made a second attempt, I standing 

 near ; when it got near the top, it turned round as if to see that 

 help was at hand, and then slowly slid down backwards, refusing 

 any assistance. When it found that it was possible to get down 

 safely, it tried again and again, until at the fifth attempt it reached 

 the top of the door, where it could turn round and come down in 

 the way it preferred. A lesson once acquired was never forgotten ; 

 after finding out how to master a difficulty, the animal never bungled. 

 Similar observations have been made on many young animals, 

 but particularly in domestic animals. In the case of the hyrax 

 there was no possible taint of ancestral modification by domestica- 

 tion, as its ancestors from time immemorial had lived in the high 

 tree-tops of Nigeria. I have said a good deal about it not merely 

 because it was an engaging and unfamiliar pet, belonging to a group 

 of mammals of which we do not know much, but because it shows 

 admirably the fundamental difference between the instinctive and 

 the experimental types of action, and the great advantage that 

 those animals enjoy which have the power of fitting their natural 

 capacities to any strange environment in which they may come to 

 be placed. 



The games of young carnivores have a direct bearing on the 

 catching of a living prey. A kitten's play with a reel, patting it, 

 making it roll to a distance and then springing on it, like the game 

 of the mother with a real mouse, is a method of training the eye 

 and muscles for the important business of catching dinner. The 

 natural instinct for such games is inborn, but the capacities have 

 to be trained. The mother of wild carnivores gives her kittens 

 or cubs the tip of her tail as a toy, making it quiver to attract their 

 attention, flicking it away from them and tempting them to spring 

 on it. My caracal kitten, which had been removed from its mother 

 long before it was old enough to play, amused itself with a reel and 

 a ball exactly like a domestic kitten. When it was being played 

 with, it used to bring back the ball and lay it down to be thrown, 

 but it invented a game of its own. There is a rather long corridor 

 in my house where it was possible to have a very good game of ball. 



