234 'Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology 



card and go to the high box to be fed, or, having clawed up the 

 wrong (no-food) card they would claw it down. The cards could 

 not be seen until they had been lifted up and they were difficult for 

 the animal to raise. Therefore there were many errors. So far 

 as imitation is in question, the important point is that the raccoons 

 did begin to do, or try to do what they had seen done by the experi- 

 menter. Before they began this they had learned to watch the 

 cards and the movements of the trainer's hands very closely indeed. 

 Therefore, the animals either imitated or else from their impatience 

 to see the right card come up there sprang the idea that they them- 

 selves might make it come up. This, however, may be all there 

 is in intelligent imitation. I stimulated their impatience by mov- 

 ing the cards slowly, and the clawing soon began. The whole 

 problem, in the case ot these animals, may be one of attracting 

 their attention to the thing to be done. Perhaps seeing a thing 

 done often enough will set free in them an impulse to do it just 

 as being put into a box will arouse an impulse to go into it. An 

 important question to ask is. What free impulses is the animal 

 capable of acquiring? Thus far we have at least two: an im- 

 pulse to enter a box into which it has always been lifted; and an 

 impulse to claw up color cards which it has previously merely seen 

 raised. Such impulses must accompany ideas acquired from the 

 experience of being lifted in and of seeing the card raised. 



This card-displayer test of imitation has an advantage over 

 those with latches, inasmuch as the animal did not at first fail. 

 He simply passed from seeing a thing done to doing it himself. 



Since the raccoons do seem to develop a tendency to do an act 

 they see done by an experimenter, it seems possible that were one 

 raccoon made dependent on another for all his food he might de- 

 velop a tendency to imitate the food-getting acts of the other. 

 There is good reason to doubt, however, whether even a young 

 raccoon can be taught to watch another. The animal's life 

 depends upon his finding and getting food before another of his 

 kind gets it, not with that other or a//^rhim,for nature puts but one 

 bit of food in a place for raccoons and I should say also for chicks, 

 dogs and cats. The bone must be seized and escaped with before 

 another gets it, if another animal be near. Hence nature puts a 

 premium on attention to the bone and punishes with hunger any 

 tendency to watch another animal getting food. Therefore, I 

 think it unlikely that imitation of another will ever appear in 



