INSTINCT AND REASON 247 
133, Play.—The play instinct is developed in numerous 
animals. To this class belong the wrestlings and mimic 
fights of young dogs, bear cubs, seal pups, and young 
beasts generally. Cats and kittens play with mice. Squir- 
Fie. 154.—Nestlings of the American bittern. The four members of the brood of 
which two are shown in Fig. 153, two weeks old, when they showed marked fear 
of man. Photograph by F. M. Cuareman, Meridian, N. Y., June 8, 1898. (Per- 
mission of Macmillan Company, publishers of Bird-Lore.) 
rels play in the trees. Perhaps it is the play impulse which 
leads the shrike or butcher-bird to impale small birds and 
beetles on the thorns about its nest, a ghastly kind of orna- 
ment that seems to confer satisfaction on the bird itself. 
The talking of parrots and their imitations of the sounds 
they hear seem to be of the nature of play. The greater 
