Experimental Study of Associative Processes 77 



or emotional attitudes these are connected with, how they 

 learn them and, above all, whether there is in birds which 

 repeat sounds any tendency to imitate in other lines, we 

 cannot, it seems to me, connect these phenomena with 

 anything found in the mammals or use them to advantage 

 in a discussion of animal imitation as the forerunner of 

 human. In what follows they will be left out of account, 

 will be regarded as a specialization removed from the general 

 course of mental development, just as the feathers or right 

 aortic arch of birds are particular specializations of no con- 

 sequence for the physical development of mammals. For 

 us, henceforth, imitation will mean imitation minus the 

 phenomena of imitative birds. 



There are also certain pseudo-imitative or semi-imitative 

 phenomena which ought to be considered by themselves. 

 For example, the rapid loss of the fear of railroad trains or 

 telegraph wires among birds, the rapid acquisition of ar- 

 boreal habits among Australian rodents, the use of proper 

 feeding grounds, etc., may be held to be due to imitation. 

 The young animal stays with or follows its mother from a 

 specific instinct to keep near that particular object, to wit, 

 its mother. It may thus learn to stay near trains, or 

 scramble up trees, or feed at certain places and on certain 

 plants. Actions due to following pure and simple may thus 

 simulate imitation. Other groups of acts which now seem 

 truly imitative may be indirect fruits of some one instinct. 

 This must be kept in mind when one estimates the supposed 

 imitation of parents by young. Further, it is certain that 

 in the case of the chick, where early animal life has been 

 carefully observed, instinct and individual experience be- 

 tween them rob imitation of practically all its supposed in- 

 fluence. Chicks get along without a mother very well. 

 Yet no mother takes more care of her children than the 



