86 ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLA Y 



not for what they may suggest, but for their own 

 sake, and enjoy amusements, exercise and emulation, 

 imagination, love of beauty, pride in accomplishments, 

 'hobbies' such as the mania for collecting art 

 treasures love of society, family pride, and personal 

 affection. A logical order in which to consider 

 some of these powers of enjoyment is that of their 

 development as the animal itself grows up. In them 

 as in our own case, the faculty of amusement comes 

 early. Many animals are so well aware of this 

 that they make it part of their maternal duties to 

 amuse their young. Even a ferret will play with 

 her ferocious little kittens, just as a cat will with 

 hers, or an old spaniel with her puppies. A mare 

 will play with her foal, though the writer has never 

 seen a cow try to amuse her calf, nor any birds 

 their young. If their mothers do not amuse them, 

 the young ones invent games of their own. Near 

 Bembridge, in the Isle of Wight, a flock of ewes 

 and lambs were in adjoining fields, separated by a 

 fence with several gaps in it. ' Follow my leader ' 

 was the game most in favour with this flock, the 

 biggest lamb leading round the field and then jump- 

 ing the gap, with all the others following in single 

 file ; any lamb that took the leap unusually well 

 would give two or three more enthusiastic jumps out 

 of sheer exuberant happiness when it reached the 



