THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 191 



this manner." * Many such cases could be cited; in- 

 deed, Romanes found among Darwin^s papers a manu- 

 script of the late Professor Hoffmann, of Giessen, con- 

 taining one.f But it is also a fact that dogs which 

 have not been brought up with cats often have the 

 habit of licking their paws and rubbing them over the 

 face and ears, but no doubt the motions of the dogs in 

 the other cases were noticeably like those of a cat. Imi- 

 tation was more clearly displayed, however, by a King 

 Charles spaniel mentioned in Miss Mitford's Life and 

 Letters. This dog was suckled by a cat in its infancy 

 at the home of Dr. Routh. He grew up with the hor- 

 ror of rain so characteristic of cats, and would not put 

 his paw in a wet place; he would watch a mouse hole, 

 too, for hours. J: A certain Mr. Jeens also had a dog 

 nursed by a cat, and it played with a mouse just as a cat 

 does.* 



Leaving such abnormal cases, I now pass on to con- 

 sider the natural workings of this instinct. Every time 

 a young animal imitates the movements of its elders 

 without any aim beyond the unconscious one of practice, 

 playful activity is indulged in. For example, I will 

 relate what I have seen young polar bears do. There 

 is a large flat stone in the bear pit, and the mother is 

 constantly shoving it backward and forward. On one 

 occasion it lay directly in her way, and she stepped over 

 it, and the little one that was behind her, though he 

 seldom cared to follow his mother about, tried to clam- 

 ber over it too, and accomplished it with some difficulty. 

 Brehm says that the only way he could get the young 



* Descent of Man, p. 4'j. 



f Rom.'^n'^s. Mental Evolution in Animals. 



X Nature, May, 1873. 



« Ibid. 



