Why look at animals?

In John Berger’s essay, "Why Look at Animals", he states that we are distinguished from animals by our capacity for symbolic thought, yet the very first symbols were animals. Animals offer explanations for or parallels with our behavior, or at least lend their name or character to particular human qualities, sometimes offering a more precise explanation than an actual definition. Aristotle, in his History of Animals writes, “in the great majority of animals there are traces of physical qualities and attitudes of human beings... in a number of animals we observe gentleness and fierceness, mildness or cross-temper, courage or timidity, fear or confidence, high spirits or low cunning, and, with regards to intelligence, something akin to sagacity.”