320 LAUGHTER AND WEEPING. 



their child playfellows. Thus a cat would allow itself to 

 be rolled up or swung about in a tablecloth, never making 

 any resistance, but purring and seeming to enjoy the fun ' 

 (' Animal World'). 



Moreover, some dogs distinguish the different kinds of 

 man's laughter that which is good-humoured or sympa- 

 thetic from what is sarcastic. They know full well the 

 difference between being laughed at and laughed with 

 being made the subject of derision and being the cause of 

 harmless merriment. Their sensitiveness to anything like 

 ridicule from man causes them to dislike, and probably to 

 resent, all forms or degrees of being laughed at; they 

 decline becoming the subjects of any sort of derisive 

 laughter. They not unfrequently even try to produce laughter 

 in man that sort of laughter which betokens his being 

 simply amused and they are chagrined if their efforts fail. 

 Thus Romanes tells us of a Skye terrier that endeavoured 

 to amuse its master and provoke his laughter by performing 

 certain tricks that it had taught itself, the dog becoming 

 sulky if its efforts to please were not successful. An orang, 

 too, in the London Zoological Gardens showed gratifica- 

 tion at the human laughter excited by its practical jokes 

 (Romanes). Wood mentions a tame jackdaw enjoying the 

 fun of boys' games leapfrog or races as much apparently 

 as the boys themselves did. 



We have already seen how frequently, and in how many 

 respects, the character of such an animal as the dog becomes 

 a reflex of that of its master. A man brimful of good- 

 natured fun a human wag, fond of amusing practical jokes 

 naturally begets, by imitation and sympathy, what might 

 be called a c comical ' dog one ready not only to take part 

 in its master's fun, but to indulge in fun on its own account 

 (Cobbe). 



It has been shown, then, that certain animals can, on the 

 one hand, laugh, and on the other possess unmistakably a 

 sense of humour ; but it does not follow that the sense in 

 question, and its expression in laughter, co-exist in the same 

 animal in the relation of cause and effect. Doubtless they 

 do so sometimes, as in the case of the waggish, fun-loving 



