226 THE BIOLOGY OF THE SEASONS 



ungulates ; it is also very common among birds. Care 

 must be taken to distinguish sham-fights from real fights, 

 and it may be admitted that among animals, just as among 

 boys, what begins in fun may readily pass into deadly 

 earnest. In a vivid description of the behaviour of two 

 young gluttons, Brehm says that nothing could be more 

 playful, they are almost never at rest for a minute, they 

 fight in fun all day, but every now and then the note of 

 earnest is struck. 



Of much interest, considering the level at which they 

 occur, are the sham-fights of some ants. Near the begin- 

 ning of the nineteenth century, Huber related that on fine 

 days the meadow-ants collect outside the ant-hill and 

 hold sports, especially of a wrestling and gymnastic sort. 

 For a long time this story was rather scoffed at, and we 

 cannot wonder; but in 1874 Forel saw the same sight, 

 confessing at the same time that he should not have believed 

 it unless he had seen. The ants behaved like a crowd 

 of schoolboys riotous with fun scrambling, wrestling, 

 jumping, and fighting. " Yet all," he says, " was without 

 anger and without any squirting of poison ; it was plainly 

 a friendly tournament." Fun seemed to be uppermost, 

 but it is possible that the apparent play might be a sort of 

 exercise or drill. It is also possible that the whole business 

 was misinterpreted, for it is notoriously difficult to get 

 mentally near animals in which instinctive behaviour is 

 dominant. 



The sham-fight is one of a large group of social plays, of 

 which the characteristic note is rivalry rivalry, however, 

 which has no serious reference to any material object of 

 desire. There is no doubt that the competitive element gives 

 zest to animal games as well as to those of man. It is not 

 essential, but it is an important auxiliary. It seems to be 

 a pleasure to the animal as to us " to be a cause " ; it is a 



