10 THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 



most influential part in it? Look at the healthy boy as 

 he runs outdoors with his bread and butter. We often 

 see him break forth into the most childish expressions 

 of delight over the joy-bringer in his hand, and this de- 

 light in the thought of eating will show itself in leap- 

 ing and running, and often in singing, the more ex- 

 cessively the more feeling or temperament controls 

 him. And though the more advanced adult may not 

 express his pleasurable excitement in singing, he does 

 by whistling." * Th. Ziegler makes use of the same 

 idea: "Joy in life, consciousness of strength, and the 

 feeling of power — in short, the feeling of pleasure as 

 such, is in its primitive and original meaning the 

 beginning and the end of play for children." f And 

 W. H. Hudson says in his wonderful book, The Natural- 

 ist in La Plata: J " My experience is that mammals and 

 birds, with few exceptions — probably there are really no 

 exceptions — possess the habit of indulging frequently in 

 more or less regular or set performances, with or without 

 sound, or composed of sound exclusively, and that these 

 performances, which in many animals are only discord- 

 ant cries and choruses, and uncouth, irregular motions, 

 in the more aerial, graceful and melodious kinds take 

 immeasurably higher, more complex, and more beautiful 

 forms." * " We see that the inferior animals, when the 

 conditions of life are favourable, are subject to periodical 

 fits of gladness, affecting them powerfully, and standing 

 out in vivid contrast to their ordinary temper. And we 



* Westermann's Illustrirte Monatshefte, 1880, pp. 239, 240. 

 + Th. Ziegler, Das Gefiihl, 1893, p. 236. 



X First edition. London : Chapman and Hall, 1892. Third 

 edition, 1895 (my citation is from this). See the brilliant criticism 

 of the work by Wallace, in Nature, April 14, 1892. 



* Loc. cit. f 264. 



