Amusement and pastime are, unquestionably, æsthetic psychical characteristics, hence, when we see evidences of these mental operations, we must acknowledge the presence of æstheticism in the animals in which they are to be noticed.
I propose to show that animals low in the scale of life—animals so low and so minute that it takes a very high-power lens to make them visible, have their pastimes and amusements. Also, that many insects and even the slothful snail are not so busily engaged in the struggle for existence that they cannot spare a few moments for play. In our researches in this field of animal intelligence we must not attribute the peculiar actions of the males in many species of animals when courting the females, to simple pastime, for they are the outward manifestations of sexual desire, and are not examples of psychical amusement. I have seen, in actinophorous rhizopods, certain actions, unconnected with sexual desire or the gratification of appetite, which lead me to believe that these minute microscopic organisms have their pastimes and moments of simple amusement. On several occasions while observing these creatures, I have seen them chasing one another around and around their miniature sea. They seemed to be engaged in a game of tag. This actinophrys is not very agile, but when excited by its play, it seems to be an entirely different creature, so lively does it become. These actions were not those of strife, for first one and then another would act the pursuer and the pursued. There were, generally, four or five actinophryans in the game.
One of the rotifers frequently acts as if engaged in play. On several occasions I have observed them perform a kind of dance, a pas seul, for each rotifer would be alone by itself. Their motions were up and down as if exercising with an invisible skipping-rope. They would keep up this play for several minutes and then resume feeding or quietly remain at rest. This rotifer goes through another performance which I also believe to be simply a pastime. Its tail is armed with a double hook or forceps. It attaches itself to a piece of alga or other substance by this forceps, and then moves its body up and down in the water for several minutes at a time.
The snail (H. pomatia) likewise has its moments of relaxation and amusement. The following instance of play may be considered to be gallantry by some, but I do not believe that I am mistaken, however, when I consider it an example of animal pastime. Two snails approached each other, and, when immediately opposite, began slowly to wave their heads from side to side. They then bowed several times in courtly salutation. This performance they kept up for quite a while and then moved away in different directions. At no time did they come in contact, and careful observation failed to reveal any excitement in the genitalia. I have witnessed the embraces of snails, and the performance described above does not resemble, in the slightest degree, the manœuvres executed at such times by mating individuals.
Swarms of Diptera may be seen on any bright day dancing in the sunlight. Naturalists have heretofore considered this swarming to be a mating of the two sexes. This is not the case, however, in many instances. On numerous occasions, and at different seasons of the year, I have captured dozens of these insects in my net and have examined them microscopically. I found them all to be unimpregnated females; I have never yet discovered a male among them. In some of the Diptera the males emerge from the pupa state after the females; I therefore believe that the females await the presence of the males, and, while waiting, pass the time away in aërial gambols.
Forel, Lubbock, Kirby, Spence, and other naturalists have declared that ants, on certain occasions, indulge in pastimes and amusements. Huber says that he saw a colony of pratensis, one fine day, "assembled on the surface of their nest, and behaving in a way that he could only explain as simulating festival sports or other games."[67] On the 27th of September last, the males and females of a colony of Lasius flavus emerged from their nest; I saw these young kings and queens congregate about the entrance of the nest and engage in playful antics until driven away by the workers. The workers would nip their legs with their mandibles until the royal offspring were forced to fly in order to escape being bitten. The inciting cause of these movements may have been sexual in character, but I hardly think so.
On the 19th of July, 1894, I saw several Lasius niger come out of their nest accompanied by a minute beetle (Claviger foveolatus); the ants caressed and played with this little insect for some time, and then conducted it back into the nest.[68]
Many such little animals are kept by the ants as pets. Lubbock says of one of them, a species allied to Podura, and for which he proposes the name Beckia, "It is an active, bustling, little being, and I have kept hundreds, I may say thousands, in my nests. They run in and out among the ants, keeping their antennæ in a perpetual state of vibration."[69] I have frequently noticed an insect belonging to the same genus as the above in the nests of F. fusca and F. rufescens. They reminded me very much of the important-looking little dogs one sees running about in the crowd on election day.
The females of Coccinellæ ("lady-bugs") frequently congregate and indulge in performances that cannot be anything else save pastimes. A beech tree in my yard is called "lady-bug tree" because, year after year, these insects collect there and hold their curious conventions. They caress one another with their antennæ, and gently "shoulder" one another from side to side. Sometimes several will get their heads together, and seem by their actions to be holding a confidential conversation.
These conventions always take place after oviposition, and careful and repeated observation has shown me that they are not connected with procreation or alimentation. I have witnessed many other instances of true psychical amusement in the lower animals, but do not think it is necessary to detail them here. Suffice it to say that I believe that almost every living creature, at some period of its existence, has its moments of relaxation from the cares of life, when it enjoys the gratification of amusement.