The Play of Animals

Publisher Marketing: This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1898. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... of mud in the air, as dogs do, and try to catch them as they fall.* 4. Fighting Plays. Such plays are usually to be regarded, in my opinion, as preparatory for the struggle for the female, though there are other reasons for the teasing and tussling of young animals. That pleasure in possessing power that appears in experimentation is certainly present here as well, and such fights serve also as practice for later battles other than those of courtship. Most animals, and especially carnivorous ones, are as pugnacious in conducting their games together as they are over actual prey, for their chasing games very easily lead to fights. But when we reflect that the defenceless creatures, whose only safety is in flight, fight among themselves just as much as the beasts of prey do, we seem to be shut up to the view that the principal use for playful contests is preparation for the later struggle for the female. The close connection between cruelty and pugnacity on the one hand, and sexual excitement on the other, is a fact confirmatory of this view. It is well known that there is a kind of voluptuous pleasure in cruelty. Preyer has published cases of perverted sexual feeling f where the highest degree of excitement was expressed by cruelty to smaller animals; and among some animals--hares, for instance--it is common for the female to be seriously abused in the act of pairing. Schaeffer says: 'J " Fighting and the impulse to kill are * Scheitlin, Thierseelenkunde, i, 74. Naumann, Naturgeschichte der VSgel Deutschlands, ix, pp. 362, 393. f MOnchen. med. Wochenschrift, 1890, No. 23. t Zeitschrift fflr Psyohol. und Physiol, d. Sinnesorgane, vol. ii (1891), p. 128. so universally attributes of the male animal that we can not doubt the connection between this side of the mascul...