THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 165 



children display to snatch at or beg for any object 

 which pleases their attention." * I regard the instinct 

 whose mandate in the struggle for life is, u Keep what 

 you can get," as very important. Men and animals 

 must learn not only to acquire, but also to defend and 

 protect their property with tenacious energy. How 

 purely instinctive this is, is shown by the tame canary 

 that will peck angrily at the hand of even its beloved 

 owner, that has just given it the bit of salad or apple 

 which it now defends. 



But there is a playful side to it as well, as witness 

 the stubbornness with which a dog at play will cling 

 to the stick in opposition to his master. As James re- 

 marks, the zeal for collecting is the most common form 

 of it among ourselves. " Boys will collect anything 

 that they see another boy collect, from pieces of chalk 

 and peach-pits up to books and photographs. Out of 

 a hundred students whom I questioned, only four or 

 five had never collected anything." f This passion is 

 highly developed among the mentally deranged. Many 

 patients in lunatic asylums have a mania for picking 

 out and treasuring all the pins they can find. Others 

 collect scraps of thread, buttons, rags, etc., and are 

 happy in possessing them.f The thieving of jackdaws 

 and magpies is something like this. 



Finally, this observation is to be noted. In all the 

 cases we have considered the desire to experiment with 

 or to get possession of objects has been directed to such 

 things as were bright or gaily coloured. Now, if we 

 find in the preference for such things an antecedent 



* The Principles of Psychology, ii, p. 422. 

 f Ibid., ii, p. 423. 



X Ibid., ii, p. 424. Kleptomania, too, belongs to the pathology 

 of this instinct. 



