70 ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLA Y 



side of the bars. We recollect a perfect instance of 

 apparently intentional humour performed by an in- 

 telligent and serio-comic raven, the property of a 

 river keeper, which always accompanied its master 

 when engaged in assisting his employers in catching 

 a basket of trout. The raven soon comprehended 

 that the object of the rest of the party was to get 

 things to eat out of the stream. That he knew, first, 

 because he saw it ; and, secondly, because he was 

 often given a small trout. So he went off fishing on 

 his own -account, and returned with a small drowned 

 kitten, which he poked into the hole in the top of 

 the basket among the fish. Now this, in a human 

 being, would be humour of a nasty, low kind, only 

 fit for horrid schoolboys ; but still it would be 

 humour. Whereas the raven was in sober earnest, 

 and very pleased with himself for his success. Mark 

 Twain's imaginary description of the efforts of the 

 blue jay to fill up a hole with nuts, when the ' hole ' 

 was a crack in the roof of a house, is hardly more 

 comical than the reality of some instances of animal 

 stupidity ; yet we never saw the slightest approach to 

 amusement in one animal at the mistakes of another, 

 though dogs, so far as we can venture to interpret 

 their thoughts, do really feel amusement at the 

 mistakes of men. 



Yet many animals have a keen appreciation of the 



