THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 123 



better; he leaped and sprang about the incensed and 

 spitting animals, incessantly dealing them blows first 

 with the right paw and then with the left. If he were 

 hungry, however, he made no such delay, but devoured 

 them at once, bones, skin, and hair." * 



I have included the dog's toying with a beetle under 

 the head of experimentation, though perhaps it would 

 be more appropriately placed here, for my terrier plays 

 with mice that he catches just as a cat does. It is cer- 

 tain, too, that foxes torment their victims long and 

 cruelly and instruct their young in the art.f The 

 mother weasel brings living mice to her little ones to 

 play with and to practise on. J 



" In Altures," says Humboldt, " we had an adventure 

 with a jaguar. Two children, a boy and a girl of eight 

 and nine years, were playing near the village. A jaguar 

 came out of the woods and bounded near them. After 

 leaping about for some time, he struck the boy on the 

 head with his paw, at first softly, and then so hard that 

 the blood streamed forth. At this the little girl seized a 

 stick and beat the animal till it fled. The jaguar seemed 

 to be playing with the children, as a cat does with 

 mice." # Finally, I may mention the cormorant that is 

 described in Darwin's Descent of Man (ii, p. 52) as 

 playing in a similar way with fishes. 



(b) Play with living mock prey. An animal will 

 play with another, usually but not always of the same 

 kind, as he does with his prey. In that case both are 

 playing, and the value of such practice for the serious 

 tasks of after-life is evident. Among beasts of prey 



* H. 0. Lenz, GemeinnUtzige Naturgesch., i, p. 166. 

 f Ibid., i, p. 266. 



i Miiller, Thiere der Heimath, i, pp. 352, 355. 



* H. 0. Lenz, Gemeinnutzige Naturgesch., i, p. 327. 



