9 6 Animal Intelligence 



plexity that only this out-and-out kind of imitation can ex- 

 plain the fact, we have located one great advance in mental 

 development. Till the primates we get practically nothing 

 but instincts and individual acquirement through impul- 

 sive trial and error. Among the primates we get also ac- 

 quisition by imitation, one form of the increase of mental 

 equipment by tradition. The child may learn from the 

 parent quickly without the tiresome process of seeing for 

 himself. The less active and less curious may share the 

 progress of their superiors. The brain whose impulses 

 hitherto could only be dislodged by specific sense-impres- 

 sions may now have any impulse set agoing by the sight of 

 the movement to which it corresponds. 



All this on the common supposition that the primates do 

 imitate, that a monkey in the place of these cats and dogs 

 would have pulled the string. My apology for leaving the 

 matter in this way without experiments of my own is that 

 the monkey which I procured for just this purpose failed in 

 two months to become tame enough to be thus experimented 

 on. Accurate information about the nature and extent of 

 imitation among the primates should be the first aim of 

 further work in comparative psychology, and will be sought 

 by the present writer as soon as he can get subjects fit for 

 experiments. 



In a questionnaire which was sent to fifteen animal trainers, 

 the following questions were asked : 



1. "If one dog was in the habit of 'begging ' to get food and 

 another dog saw him do it ten or twenty times, would the second 

 dog then beg himself?" 



2. 'In general is it easier for you to teach a cat or dog a trick 

 if he has seen another do it ?" 



3. " In general do cats imitate each other ? Do dogs? Do 

 monkeys ? ' 



