136 THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 



so universally attributes of the male animal that we can 

 not doubt the connection between this side of the mas- 

 culine nature and the sexual. The writer himself be- 

 lieves, from personal observation, that in the perfect 

 male the first shadowy unrecognised suggestion of sex- 

 ual excitement may be aroused by reading of hunting 

 and fighting, and that the necessity for some sort of 

 satisfaction gives rise to combative games, such as the 

 ring fights of boys/' If Schaeffer means that "the 

 fundamental sexual impulse for the utmost extensive 

 and intensive contact of the participants with a more 

 or less clearly defined idea of conquest underlying it " 

 is the main thing, I can only partly agree with him. 

 My idea is that teasing and fighting are closely con- 

 nected with the sexual life from the fact that they 

 furnish practice for the contest of courtship, without 

 being in any sense satisfying to the sexual instinct. 

 Among many animals that play in this way the female 

 yields to the victor of the males without resistance; 

 and, besides, it frequently happens in the fighting of 

 birds that there is no direct contact at all. Then, again, 

 many young animals have special plays connected with 

 pairing besides their fighting plays. 



(a) Teasing arises when the desire to fight either 

 does not seek or can not find direct satisfaction. A 

 belligerent animal delights to provoke others that are 

 perhaps not thinking of fighting. After establishing 

 its supremacy by this means the teasing is apt to develop 

 into cruel torture. There are some boys who can not 

 resist dealing an unprovoked cuff to another boy, or 

 pulling his hair, and there are just such animals. When 

 Bennett tried to bring an ape to Europe there were 

 other monkeys on the ship that would have nothing 

 to do with him, and he took revenge by seizing them 



