gait’ (Miller, 1973) or some other form of metacommunication (Dolhinow and Bishop, 1970), the young animal signals his intent to play. Now, so to speak, he can test limits with relative impunity: There are many mules of what can and cannot be done in a troop, and most of these are learned early fe, when the consequences of violating them are less severe than later on [Dolhinow and Bishop, 1970, p. 148]. Second, play provides an excellent opportunity to try combinations of behaviour that would, under functional pressure, never be tried, ‘The tendency to manipulate sticks, to lick the ends, to poke them into any available hole are responses that occur over and over again in captive chimpanzees. These responses are not necessarily organized into the efficient use of sticks to probe for objects, but they probably form the basis of complex motor patterns such as termiting [Lancaster, 1968, p. 61]. Orinvan Lawick-Goodall's (1968) account: With the fruit, Figan devised a game of his own: lying on his back, he spins a Strychnos ball round and round, balancing it on his hands and kicking gently with his feet, like a circus bear ... Toys like this are not always at hand, but then the youngsters seem just as content to play with stones, leaves, or twigs. They may throw them, rub them over their bodies, pull leaves off stems, break and bend twigs, or poke them into holes in the ground. This form of play may be of tremendous importance in developing