ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the work that seems to be more directly concerned with investigatory play, most of which has been done using the chimpanzee as subject. It discusses the some aspects of play, in particular those forms related to investigation and exploration. Both the motoric and the motivational differences between serious and playful chase behaviour may be illustrated by a condensed description of social interactions observed and recorded in the chimpanzee colony at the London Zoo Visitors to the Zoo have been overheard to mistake a serious chase for play behaviour, but never a play-chase for one more serious. This fact again points up the interspecific quality of much play behaviour. The influence of the novelty of the stimulus in eliciting play behaviour is shown by the fact that the introduction of a new set of 'play-objects'.
