THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 217 



single animal has more curiosity, unless it be the poodle. 

 When a flock of goats is driven through a village, one 

 and another will go into the houses, even into the rooms, 

 and look about without concerning himself as to where 

 the others are gone. He climbs over whatever he can, 

 from mere curiosity, and sometimes goes to the second 

 or third story of a house." * And the chamois is just 

 as bad ; they can be captured as can gazelles, by the dis- 

 play of a new or strange object, which so excites their 

 curiosity that they forget the danger. Lloyd Morgan 

 reports of his cat : " My cat was asleep on a chair and 

 my little son began blowing a toy horn. The cat, with- 

 out moving, mewed uneasily. I told my boy to con- 

 tinue blowing. The cat grew more uneasy, and at last 

 got up^ stretched herself, and turned toward the source 

 of the discomfort. She stood looking at my boy for a 

 minute as he blew. Then, curling herself up, went to 

 sleep again, and no amount of blowing disturbed her 

 further." f The animal had evidently accepted this 

 new impression, and was satisfied to add it to her store 

 of ideas. 



A Fraulein Delaistre had a tame weasel, of which 

 she says, among other things: "A notable quality of 

 this animal is its curiosity. If I open a trunk or a 

 drawer or look at a paper he must come and look 

 too." X 



The raccoon, too, is " curious to the last degree," 

 says Weinland; of the one that has been described 

 playing with a badger Beckmann writes: " One day he 

 was too severe with the badger, which went off growl- 



* Thierseelenkunde, ii, p. 207. 



f Animal Life and Intelligence, p. 339. 



X H. O. Lenz, Gemeinniitzige Naturgcschichte, 1851, i, p. 164. 



