THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 227 



ago a goose excited considerable attention in a small 

 town by its strange actions. Whenever the parish clerk 

 came from the market with his great bell, as was the cus- 

 tom, to make a proclamation, a black and white goose 

 left the flocks assembled at the brook and waddled has- 

 tily toward the circle of listening peasants. There she 

 stood immovable all through the ceremony, with head 

 outstretched as though she would parody the attentive 

 attitude of the other auditors, until the bell was taken 

 up. At this moment she set out to follow the officer 

 to the next street, where she again took the listening 

 attitude, and in this way accompanied the man all 

 over the widespread town, only seeking her companions 

 at the brook when he returned to his office. This habit 

 was kept up for many months." * The famous parrot 

 belonging to Director Kastner, in Vienna, always no- 

 ticed when a bottle was about to be uncorked, and imi- 

 tated the pop before it came, showing absorbed attention 

 and anticipation.! 



Two points of psychological interest are still to be 

 noted. When I spoke of aesthetic attention, I did not 

 mean to imply that aesthetic pleasure consists in con- 

 scious acts of attention, the word being used in the 

 ordinary sense. If, for example, the female bird wit- 

 nessing the performance of the males once attained to 

 apperception, no doubt the imitative impulse would be 

 roused just as with ourselves, without the conscious 

 effort of attention. The question whether there may 

 not be a constant unconscious anticipation may be an- 

 swered affirmatively on various grounds, but this is not 

 the place to explain them. Secondly, it may be re- 



* Der zoologische Garten, vii, p. 238. 



f K. Russ, Die sprechenden Papageien, 1887, p. 29. 



