Animal Studies 
F ut • r ^ 
rom -Lite. 
By LEONARD LARKIN. 
The following amusing studies are taken from the welLknown American 
comic paper " Life,” which has for some time past made a feature of 
the humorous side of the animal world. We are glad to be in a 
position to present our readers with a selection of these clever and 
entertaining sketches. 
NT MATS present their own aspects of humour, 
and the evidence is fully sufficient that 
some of them have a sense of humour of 
their own. A jackdaw certainly has, and it is 
a less malicious sort than that quite as 
certainly possessed by his cousins the magpie 
and the raven ; it is more human, in a word. 
The dog’s sense of humour seems to grow blunted after 
puppy hood ; or rather it changes, being overlaid by a horror 
of becoming ridiculous. Nothing in creation can stand a 
joke against itself so badly as a dog ; nothing is so wretched 
as a dog who thinks he is being laughed at. 
But the humour of animals as seen by human eyes is apt 
to depend on some supposed parallel between human and 
animal habits and conditions, so self-centred and self- 
sufficient are we of two legs and no unbought wings ; and it 
is the way of the comic artist who deals with animals to 
depend on semi-human situations for his effects. Mr. J. A. 
Shepherd, an old favourite of Strand readers, does this less 
than most, and has the faculty of bringing out the humour 
of animal life from the animals as they really live, a rare 
and difficult achievement. But in general, and quite legiti- 
mately, the humorous draughtsman makes the most of 
human concerns applied to animal life ; several American 
artists in particular show very lively and alert perceptions 
in this direction, and from the ever-bright pages of JAje 
we reproduce a number of characteristic specimens. 
Mr. Walt Kuhn has made himself a reputation in one 
particular department, and we begin with a bright little 
drawing of his own particular sort. “ Be patient, dear ! ” 
observes the little hen bird to the hungry husband perched 
above; “ breakfast will be up in a minute ! ” And the 
innocent breakfast, a caterpillar who has never dreamed itself 
to be a meal of any sort, rises patiently to its doom where the 
sharp-set spouse, with no patience at all, shows imminent 
signs of waiting no more, but coming dow r n to breakfast. 
Leaving Mr. Kuhn for a moment, we have a picture bv Mr. 
Lutz wherein the woodpecker’s obvious function as a “bill- 
sticker ” gives the tom-tit a chance to score — in the 
human sense. 
Mr. Kuhn, finding a food joke successful, tries again, and 
Vol. xlvi«— 11. 
‘‘BE PATIENT, HEAR 1 BREAK 
FAST WILL BE UP IN A MINUTE.” 
Mr. Tom-Tit: “HEY! mister, 
don't you see that sign, or 
can’t YOU READ ENGLISH ? ” 
“SAY, BROTHER, I’M AFRAID 
GRUB IS GOING Ul 5 5 ” 
