A few examples of the play of young animals may be given. Young predaceous animals and some ungulates have the instinct of running in pursuit of a moving object. They jump after one another or after the parent animal, often stimulated by the sight of the tip of the tail or the brush of the mother. Young ungulates carry out amusing leaps and capers. Young climbing animals practise climbing and jumping from branches. Predaceous ani mals push stones, tufts of grass, or pieces of wood with their paws and then jump after them as if at a living prey. When they fight together they seize each other with teeth and claws, but without using their weapons in earnest. The young of animals which have horns or antlers frequently butt at one another before the horns have grown out. The play of apes is particularly lively, consisting usually of movement-games. In the play of chimpanzees some thing manifests itself which might well be termed joy in per formance. The games of the anthropoids kept at Teneriffe often took the form of a sort of sport or fashion. Thus, for some time, they took pleasure in breaking open the cover of the drain in the animal-house. On another occasion they occupied themselves in offering bread to fowls which were outside the bars of their cage. When the fowls pecked at the bread the chimpanzees would draw it back quickly, or would hit at the birds with a stick or a piece of wire.
Ethics.—Man is wont to ascribe all manner of moral senti ments to those animals with which he is most familiar. But it must be borne in mind that morality in the strict sense is impos sible in animals for the reason that they are incapable of abstract thought. On the other hand it is quite certain that many moral actions of human beings have their roots in animal behaviour. Whenever the mode of life of animals involves a number of individuals remaining together temporarily or permanently, we find the beginnings of morality. Of course, the actions in question are always purely instinctive. First of all the numerous instincts for the care of offspring by parent animals must be mentioned. Social life in larger or smaller groups requires a mutual con sideration of the individuals for one another. Often a special impulse for companionship exists. This is, no doubt, the reason why many animals attach themselves so easily to men. Among birds we find the highest and fullest development of conjugal life. Lifelong mating is known in the stork, the partridge, the swallow and the dove. It is true that we must not exaggerate our interpre tation here. In these animal marriages, if they may so be called, there is no question of a relation of friendship or love between the partners. They are rather brought together again and again because instinct always drives them back to the same place where they first built their nest. The reason for conjugal fidelity in
these cases is a fidelity to locality or nest. To be sure, in certain birds, the pairs cleave together with a measure of tenderness. The love of monkeys for their young is well known, not only for their own, but for the offspring of others or even the young of different species of animals. Yet observations in zoological gardens have shown that the mother ape in captivity, in spite of her tenderness, allows no food to get to her young when little food is available. It is noticeable, on the other hand, with what care carnivore mother animals bring food to their young, and can even be persuaded in zoological gardens to suckle strange young.
Aesthetic Feelings.—These have also been ascribed to the higher animals. Thus the decorative colours of male animals play an important part in Darwin's theory of sexual selection (q.v.). It appears to be certain that the capacity possessed by birds of distinguishing between colours will, in most cases, certainly not permit of the female taking note of all the details of the decora tive feathering of the male, though for the purpose of Darwin's theory, the stimulatory effect of the general impression is all that is required. Many birds, such as magpies, undoubtedly are stimu lated by bright objects and colours (see C. G. Levick, Antarctic Penguins). The ornamental bowers of the bower-birds of Aus tralia and New Guinea undoubtedly impress the females merely by the quantity and brightness of the heaped-up leaves, fruits, berries, bones, shells and so forth. For these collections are for the most part quite disorderly. In general it is characteristic that regular houses or constructions which appeal to our sense of beauty are found only in those animals which certainly build them by instinct alone. As soon as the building activity, owing to a greater plasticity of the instincts, is no longer restricted so exactly to quite definite materials, we notice at once a deviation from the forms appealing to our own aesthetic sense. Animals have no true sense of beauty. Yet the roots of such a sense lie in the animal kingdom. Among the anthropoids it appears timor ously in a singularly engaging form. Thus the Teneriffe chimpan zees were wont to deck their bodies with all sorts of objects, such as twigs, plants, cord, rags. It would appear as if these objects, hanging on the body, had a decorative function in the widest sense. On occasions the chimpanzees, when left to themselves, ran around in a circle after one another in a peculiar manner, stamping their feet. Indeed, an attempt at a certain rhythm could be noticed in their movements. Kohler is of the opinion that these games are comparable with the play of children, and, in their extreme forms, with the primitive dances of aborigines.