fhe Mental Life of the Monkeys 219 



his and other cages by taking out sticks hundreds of times, 

 but though he escaped from his cage a dozen times in other 

 ways, he never took the stick out and to my knowledge never 

 tried to. I myself and visitors smoked a good deal in the 

 monkeys' presence, but a cigar or cigarette given to them 

 was always treated like anything else. 



IMITATION OF OTHER MONKEYS 



It would theoretically seem far more likely that the mon- 

 keys should learn from watching each other than from watch- 

 ing human beings, and experimental determinations of such 

 ability are more important than those described in the last 

 section as contributions both to genetic psychology and to 

 natural history. I regret that the work I have been able to 

 do in the study of this phase of the mental life of the mon- 

 keys has been very limited and in many ways unsatisfactory. 



We should expect to find the tendency to imitation more 

 obvious in the case of young and parents than elsewhere. I 

 have had no chance to observe such cases. We should ex- 

 pect closely associated animals, such as members of a com- 

 mon troop or animals on friendly terms, to manifest it more 

 than others. Unfortunately, two of my monkeys, by the 

 time I was ready to make definite experiments, were on terms 

 of war. The other had then become so shy that I could not 

 confidently infer inability to do a thing from actual failure 

 to do it. He showed no evidence of learning from his 

 mates. I have, therefore, little evidence of a quantitative 

 objective nature to present and shall have in the end to ask 

 the reader to take some opinions without verifiable proofs. 



My reliable experiments, five in number, were of the fol- 

 lowing nature. A monkey who had failed of himself (and 

 often also after a chance to learn from me or from being put 



