ANIMALS AT PLAY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIII, Issue XVIII, 28 October 1899, Page 799

ANIMALS AT PLAY.

THEY ENJOY GAMES EVEN AS CHILDREN DO. People fancy that kittens, puppies, and lambs are the only creatures that play. But this is quite a mistake. No one who has ever watched monkeys in their native forests can doubt for a moment that they enjoy play as much as we humans. Indeed, they seem to sometimes indulge in regularly organised games. A recent African traveller speaks of having watched a troop of monkeys enjoying a regular toboggan slide. They had chosen the steep clayey bank of a river, and were gliding down one after another head foremost, “keeping the pot boiling” as eagerly as schoolboys on a slide. The plunge each took into the deep, muddy stream at the bottom seemed merely to give them fresh energy for another attempt. And there is no doubt that monkeys in captivity take intense plcasme in a regular practical joke. A grey monkey was liought by the skipper of an African cargo boat, and became so tame it was allowed complete liberty aboard. Its chief delight was to get into the cook’s galley and turn the water-tap on. Then it would hide and wait to enjoy the poor cook's surprise and consternation. Another monkey mentioned by Humboldt took its chief delight in a morning ride on pig-back. An American racoon belonging to the writer enjoyed nothing better than playing a sort of game of hide and seek with a eat. The eat was a sedate enough animal before the arrival of the coon. The coon taught her the game, which was generally played about a stack of loose timber. The animals hid in turn, and the concealed one would dash out when the seeker aproached it and chase it “home,” to an old carpenter's bench near by, beneath which stood the coon’s kennel. Parrots often possess a distinct sense of humour. A Brazilian parrot belonging to a railway official one night succeeded in making his master believe some one had been run over. An engine was shunting through the station, when cries, followed by a low moaning, sounded from beneath its wheels. The engine was stopped and great confusion ensued. But nothing was found, and no clue to the situation discovered till the parrot, who hung in a cage near by, suddenly went off into a peal of mocking laughter. The writer once owned a grey parrot who delighted in nothing more than whistling for the dog. At least,half-a-dozen times in the day he succeeded in deluding the unfortunate terrier, whom no experience rendered wiser.

My lord the elephant, big, stately beast that he is. would never be suspected of the fooling he sometimes indulges in. But if you have ever watched a party of elephants having a bathe after a hard day’s work yon will never doubt the elephant has plenty of fun in his composition. The way in which one will sidle quietly up to another, and when he is not looking spurt a tremendous stream of water over his head reminds one of nothing so much as a mischievous urchin.