42 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, 



This conclusion is drawn from the fact that the animals give 

 no evidence of observation of their surroundings, or of delibera- 

 tion. 



The author can hardly find words for his contempt for those 

 who believe that animals reason. He says: " So, although it 

 is in a way superfluous to give the coup de grace to the despised 

 theory that animals reason, I think it is worth while to settle 

 this question once for all. " (Page 39.) Again he says: "I 

 should claim that this quarrel ought now to be dropped for 

 good and all * * * I should claim that the psychologist 

 who studies dogs and cats in order to defend this ' reason ' 

 theory is on a level with the zoologist who should study fishes 

 with a view to supporting the thesis that they possessed clawed 

 digits." (Page 46.) 



Third. — Animals do not imitate. — Finding that birds do imitate, 

 he, very wisely, leaves them out of this discussion. The cases 

 of imitation are "regarded as a specialization removed from 

 the general course of mental development, just as the feathers 

 or aortic arch of birds are particular specializations of no con- 

 sequence for the physical development of mammals. '"(Page 47.) 



The kind of specialization investigated by our author is 

 illustrated by the man who, seeing another turn a faucet, turns 

 a faucet himself to get a drink. In other words, " from an 

 act witnessed he learns to do the act " 



The experiments bearing on this question may be illustrated 

 by the following: 



A pen was so constructed that a chick could get out either 

 by crawling under a wire screen or walking up an inclined 

 plate. A chick who had learned to crawl under the screen was 

 placed in this pen with an icexperienced chick. In nine 

 minutes and tweaty seconds the first chick crawled under nine 

 times, and at the end of that time the other walked up the 

 inclined plane and got out. "It was impossible to judge how 

 many times the inexperienced chick actually saw the perform- 

 ance of the other. " 



Another inexperienced chick was tried in the same way and 

 crawled under the wire in four minutes and twenty seconds, his • 

 companion having in the meantime crawled under four times. 

 Now this would appear to be imitation, but no! The author 

 says that probably he went under "not by imitation but by 

 a,ccident. " 



