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If you have a cat, it's likely that at some point you've seen it do this: while playing with your foot it suddenly dropped to its side, latched on with its front claws and began a coordinated kicking motion with both back legs.
如果你養貓，在某一時刻你可能會注意到它這樣的舉動：在腳邊玩耍時，貓咪突然猛地下撲，用兩只前爪抱住你的腳，兩條后腿持續蹬踢。
The cat probably gave you a good four or five swats before letting go. From a human point of view this looks like great fun—a real rough-and-tumble kind of game. But where does it come from?
貓咪不給你來四五個猛擊可能不會停手。對人來說看似很好玩，就像一場真正的混戰游戲。但是這樣的游戲是有由來的。
Before giving an answer, let's think for a second about the kind of thing we can learn even from so commonplace an event. Housepets are not toys; although they are domesticated and, in the instance of cats, much smaller than their wild counterparts, it's a mistake to regard them as fundamentally different from wild animals. They share millions of years of evolutionary history, and their behaviors--even playful ones--are in many cases behavior that was very useful in the wild.
在給出答案之前，花一秒鐘來想想從這種最常見的游戲上能學到什么。家養寵物可不是玩具；盡管它們被馴服了，并且比野生的同類體積小許多，但是拿貓來說，如果你認為家貓與野貓有本質的區別，那就大錯特錯了。它們有著上百萬年相同的進化歷史。家貓的一些行為，即使很有趣，但對野貓來說是有很用的。
So, think again about that front-claw grab connected with a back-claw kick that your cat does from time to time. You may see it in a new light when you realize that the cat is executing a very effective device for killing prey or enemies: hold the other animal's stomach in place while you disembowel it.
所以，再想想你家貓咪那一次又一次，前爪抱后爪踢的動作。以另一種觀點來看待的話，你或許會發現貓咪是在執行一種很有效的能殺死獵物或敵人的動作：前爪按住其它動物的胃部，后爪鉤出內臟。
Of course, that doesn't mean your cat is really trying to hurt you; but it does show us that playful behavior in animals --and, oftentimes, in humans--is not simply nonsense. In many cases it is a practice run for learning more useful skills--even deadly ones.
當然，這并不表示你的貓咪是在傷害你；但也證明動物之間，或者動物與人之間的一些頑皮行為并不是無用的。在許多情況下，這是在演習更有用的生存本領，即使是致命的本領。
