120 THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 



3. Hunting Plays. 



Instinct is much more conspicuous in this class of 

 plays than in those which we have heretofore considered, 

 for by means of them the young animal, even while yet 

 having its food provided by parental care, practises 

 sportively those movements which will be used in ear- 

 nest later on. 



Even the idomestic animals — the dog for instance, 

 that may never feed on prey, but eat all its life from 

 the prosaic feeding trough — carry on with passion- 

 ate zeal, plays the origin of which must be sought in the 

 ancestral manner of feeding. A glance over this class 

 of plays shows us that they naturally fall into three 

 groups: (a) Play with actual living prey, (b) Play with 

 living mock prey. Animals of the same kind usually 

 chase one another reciprocally; thus we have to con- 

 sider the letting themselves be chased, as well as the 

 active chasing, (c) Play with lifeless mock prey, with a 

 stick of wood, a ball, or other such objects. I have 

 arranged the order of these groups so that the examples 

 most illustrative of simple play shall come first, but it 

 would be a mistake to suppose that actual time sequence 

 is indicated by this order. On the contrary, play with 

 lifeless objects is in many cases first in point of time. 



(a) Is the treatment of living prey by carnivorous 

 animals properly called play? A beast of prey seizes his 

 victim, does not kill it, but lets the slightly wounded 

 creature loose on the ground. It takes to flight, but is 

 instantly recaptured, perhaps shaken a little, and again 

 set free. This time it lies motionless, perhaps from 

 weakness, perhaps to feign death. But the merciless 

 beast keeps teasing it until it again attempts flight, 

 only to be seized once more by its tormentor. In this 



