224 THE BIOLOGY OF THE SEASONS 



For the endless task of finding out about the world has its 

 play-form which is obviously one of the roots of science. 



Speaking of his young goats, Mr. Hamerton says : 

 " If there is a basket in the place which will hold one of 

 them, and no more, the others will watch him with great 

 interest, and as soon as he jumps out (which he is never 

 very long in doing) the others inevitably jump in and out 

 again by turns. A game of this kind will last till one of the 

 kids has a new suggestion to make/' 



One day it was the fashion among the kids to carry a little 

 sprig of green between the lips ; another day they tried to 

 upset the artist by getting under his seat ; from that they 

 passed to experimenting with the big dog, till "he could 

 stand it no longer and rushed out of the place, not trusting 

 himself to refrain from using his mighty jaws, which would 

 have crushed a kid's head like a nutshell." 



As one sees, it is extremely difficult not to intermingle 

 inference with observation ; but there are some very careful 

 records bearing on the play of experiment. Thus we may 

 quote a few sentences from Miss Romanes' observations 

 on her Capuchin monkey a very valuable and well-exe- 

 cuted piece of work : " He is very fond of upsetting things, 

 but he always takes great care that they do not fall upon 

 himself. Thus, he will pull a chair towards him till it is 

 almost overbalanced ; then he intently fixes his eyes on the 

 top bar of the back, and, as he sees it coming over his way, 

 darts from underneath, and watches the fall with great 

 delight ; and similarly with heavier things. There is a 

 wash-hand-stand, for example, which he has upset several 

 times, and always without hurting himself. One day he 

 played for a long time with a hearth-brush, learning to 

 unscrew the handle and, what was much more difficult, 

 putting it together again. When he had become by 

 practice tolerably perfect in screwing and unscrewing, he 



