t. It is spontaneous and haphazard, without rule or system; but
is, in every case, along the line of the future struggle for life of
the particular bird or animal. A young marsh hawk which we reared used
to play at striking leaves or bits of bark with its talons; kittens
play with a ball, or a cob, or a stick, as if it were a mouse, dogs
race and wrestle with one another as in the chase; ducks dive and
sport in the water; doves circle and dive in the air as if escaping
from a hawk; birds pursue and dodge one another in the same way; bears
wrestle and box; chickens have mimic battles; colts run and leap;
fawns probably do the same thing; squirrels play something like a game
of tag in the trees; lambs butt one another and skip about the rocks;
and so on.

In fact, nearly all play, including much of that of man, takes the
form of mock battle, and is to that extent an education for the
future. Among the carnivora it takes also the form of the chase. Its
spring and motive are, of course, pleasure, and not education; and
herein again is revealed the cunning of nature--the power that
conceals purposes of its own in our most thoughtless acts. The cat and
the kitten play with the live mouse, not to indulge the sense of
cruelty, as some have supposed, but to indulge in the pleasure of the
chase and unconsciously to practice the feat of capture. The cat
rarely plays with a live bird, because the recapture would be more
difficult, and might fail. What fisherman would not like to take his
big fish over and over again, if he could be sure of doing it, not
from cruelty, but for the pleasure of practicing his art? For further
light on the subject of the significance of the play of animals, I
refer the reader to the work of Professor Karl Groos called "The Play
of Animals."

One of my critics has accused me of measuring all things by the
standard of my little farm--of thinking that what is not true of
animal life there is not true anywhere. Unfortunately my farm _is_
small--hardly a score of acres--and its animal life very limited. I
have never seen even a porcupine upon it; but I have a hill where one
might roll down, should one ever come my way and be in the mood for
that kind of play.[1] I have a few possums, a woodchuck or two, an
occasional skunk, some red squirrels and rabbits, and many kinds of
song-birds. Foxes occasionally cross my acres; and once, at least, I
saw a bald eagle devouring a fish in one of my apple-trees. Wild