318 LAUGHTER AND WEEPING. 



variety of ways. And not only do they enjoy and appreciate 

 fun in each other, but they understand, appreciate, and 

 enjoy that of man, distinguishing fun or joke from, earnest, 

 and the fun of good humour and good intent from that of 

 ridicule or derision. 



Writing to me in July 1871, the late Sir Henry Holland 

 remarks, *I especially allude to the sense of fun in the 

 higher animals as a striking demonstration of the relation 

 of their [mental] faculties to those of man.' In some of his 

 published works he draws a distinction between wit and fun, 

 ascribing a sense of fun to the monkey and the dog, but 

 regarding wit as a characteristic of man alone. In order, 

 however, to justify man's monopoly of wit, as contrasted with 

 or separated from fun, it must obviously be redefined in 

 some special way ; for, according to the usual or dictionary 

 definition of wit ' the power of combining ideas with 

 ludicrous effect' there can be no doubt of its being an 

 attribute of various quadrupeds and birds. 



A sense of fun is exhibited in various ways by a con- 

 siderable variety of animals, including especially, among the 

 Mammalia, the monkey and the dog, and among birds the 

 parrot, mocking-bird, and starling. They show it more 

 particularly both adult and young animals in their 

 own 



1. Practical jokes and 



2. Sports or games 



and in the part which these animals so frequently play in 

 the jokes and sports of man. Miss Buist asserts that some 

 of our other common cage birds, besides the parrot and 

 starling, display what appears to be a sense of the humorous. 

 The f Animal World ' tells us of a canary ' meaning fun.' 

 The parrot obviously enjoys and appreciates fun ; it exhibits 

 merriment or mirth sometimes of a rollicking, boisterous, 

 demonstrative kind (Broderip). White speaks of a pet 

 rabbit making and enjoying fun with various playfellows. 

 Fun in the mouse is displayed in its antics (' Animal World '). 

 Fun occurs even in the bull (Buckland). Miss Cobbe says, 

 * The goose .... has perhaps the keenest appreciation of 

 humour of any animal, unless it be her own arch-enemy the 



