540 PRACTICAL JOKES. 



Certain animals require sympathy in their joys, as in their 

 ' griefs ; and possibly their love of admiration in some 

 cases must be gratified. Thus the orang plays pranks and 

 delights in them ; but only when it has spectators of its 

 tricks (Cassell), when approval or applause would appear to 

 be taken for granted. 



Some practical jokes of the lower animals are apt to be 

 as serious to man as to each other. Thus the 'Animal 

 World ' tells us of a sheep, whose fondness for practical fun 

 led it to watch for unwary human bye-passers from the win- 

 dow of the second storey of a granary : and when one was 

 passing immediately underneath the window, this eccentric 

 animal would drop itself suddenly upon him, with all its 

 weight of course. In this case the mischief was gratuitous. 

 But in other cases the practical jokes of animals take the very 

 appropriate form of the punishment of man for his misdeeds 

 perhaps for his practical jokes on them. The success and 

 appropriateness of such punishment illustrate man's own 

 proverbs, or sayings about * the biter bit,' * diamond cut dia- 

 mond,' or *more than his match.' Thus the elephant, dog 

 and parrot sometimes inflict ingenious forms of punishment 

 well deserved on boys or adults who have teased them. 



The mode in which practical jokes are perpetrated by 

 different species and genera varies greatly ; and this variation 

 involves great ingenuity, devising the most appropriate 

 means in each case. An orang in a ship's galley, ' in order to 

 play the cook a trick, used to turn the water cocks ' (Biich- 

 ner). 



One of the commonest modes of perpetrating practical 

 jokes is mimicry, imitation of the songs, cries, calls, voice- 

 sounds of other animals, including man. But all mimicry 

 does not involve mockery the intention to * make a fool ' of 

 another ; to lead it into some mishap, to deceive it to its 

 hurtj and to enjoy itself at the victim's expense. ' Even in 

 the same animal, for instance the mocking bird itself, there 

 may be either, or both, harmless mimicry, and deliberate 

 mockery. And the mockery employed may involve genuine 

 derision, studied insult. The mocking bird mocks, as well 

 as mimics ; it engages in deception, intentional, as well as 



