Etiquette Found in Nature

No “social pressure” can have been put upon the raccoons at the zoo to make them conform to the laws of the ‘coon etiquette, but they do so all the same…
-Image source, Cliff C. Graber

The Raccoon

The common American Raccoon (or “Coon”) is a slave to an unusual form of etiquette, which in its case has grown almost beyond the forms of conventional observance and become a kind of conscience to it. It will wash everything which it eats, if there is any water near. The fact seems to have been questioned by some writers, but it is certainly the habit of raccoons when kept in captivity with access to water. They are very fussy, particular creatures, much given to picking up and carrying off anything odd which takes their fancy. And this, whatever it may be, is duly taken to the water and well “rinsed out,” whether vegetables or bits of cloth, or even solid hard things, like shells and shiny stones.

No “social pressure” can have been put upon the raccoons at the zoo to make them conform to the laws of the ‘coon etiquette, but they do so all the same, and it is a fact that, last spring, one which had a litter of young ones, to which she was much attached, was suddenly seized with a desire to wash them, and carrying them down one by one to her little stone bath paddled and washed the poor little creatures as if she had been washing cabbages. It may be doubted whether the kittens did not owe their death to this perverted feeling of social duty in their parent, for they did not long survive their immersion. – London Spectator, 1895 

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia