reathed
His light proboscis."_

_--Paradise Lost._

That "one touch of Nature makes the whole world kin" is shown in no
clearer way than by the games and play of animals. Recreation is as
common among them as it is among our own children; and they seem always
to be artistic and even skilled in their play. Young goats and lambs
skip, jump, run races, throw flips in the air, and gambol; calves have
interesting frolics; young colts and mules have biting and kicking
games; bears wrestle and tumble; puppies delight in biting and tussling;
while kittens chase everything from spools of thread to their own
tails.

But animal children grow up, and stop playing to a certain extent as age
advances, precisely as human children do. Each settles down into a more
practical condition of life. They dislike to have their games and play
disturbed, and if the mother dog growls because her playful son has
continuously tumbled over her while she was sleeping, or the cat-mother
slaps her kitten because he plays with her tail--it is a display of the
same kind of emotion that prompts a human mother to rebuke her child in
the nursery for making too much noise, or for throwing toys out of the
window. Animals, like ourselves, feel every sensation of joy, happiness,
surprise, disappointment, love, hope, ambition, and through their
youthful games an entire index of their future lives may be obtained.

This play has much to do with the physical and mental development of the
animals; and it is strange indeed that so few writers have considered
the subject of play in the animal world. Most of those who have noticed
the subject at all, drop it with a few remarks, to the effect that it is
"highly amusing," or "very funny," or "unbelievable," or "so like the
play of children," without even a word of explanation of the whys and
wherefores of it.

All animals have some kinds of play. Plutarch speaks of a trained
elephant that often practised her steps when she thought no one was
looking. No one who has ever visited a zoological park and seen the
crowded monkey and baboon cages can have failed to note the wonderful
play of these animals. Seals seem never to tire of chasing one another
through the water; while even the clumsy hippopotamuses have diving
games.

Kittens begin to tumble and play before they are two weeks old. They
will roll and toss a ball, hunting it from the dark corners, lay in
silent wait for each other, and suddenly spring upo