Haggerty, hmtation in Monkeys. 439 



attacked the right object he repeated the movement of the imitatee 

 in detaiL The impulse seemed to be to do something to the object, 

 and the imitating animal used his hands and teeth interchangeably. 

 As a result the behavior of the imitator was often ill adapted to 

 secnre the profitable result. Repetition of the act usually refined 

 such behavior until it was correct. 



The most perfect type of imitation is exact repetition in detail of 

 the act of the imitatee. The case of No. 13 in the Chute Experiment 

 already cited is an example. So also is the behavior of l^o. 3 in 

 the Button Experiment, and of No. 6 in the Rope Experiment. 

 The investigation furnishes a number of other cases which are 

 approximately as good. 



(c) The Stimulus to Imifatirc Behavior. — Some of the animals 

 which I have studied learned to manipulate mechanisms unaided. 

 I\o. 2 did this with the chute, No. 4 did it with the screen, and a 

 number of the monkeys learned to get food by tearing the paper. 

 In the case of the Paper Experiment and in the case of No. 2 in 

 the Chute Experiment, the stimulus was the mechanism itself. 

 That the mechanism was liot a sufficient stimulus in many cases is 

 evident from the large number of failures to learn unaided which 

 the investigation furnishes. 



In the Chute Experiments eight different animals were given the 

 preliminary trials and of these six showed no interest in the' end 

 nf the chute, most of them not even going to it. This, of course, 

 does not prove that they might not have learned how to get food 

 if the trials had been indefir.itely prolonged, nor is it necessary to 

 prove this latter thesis in order to interpret the behavior of the 

 monkeys as imitation. What these preliminary tests do establish i-". 

 the improTjahility tlint a sudden change of hehavior should occur in 

 the sixth trial ivith 70% of the animals used. For the stimulus to 

 this sudden change we must look to something other than the 

 mechanism itself. 



It may not be out of place at this point, to say a word in reply 

 to a criticism often made upon the use of animals kept in a zoological 

 garden. The criticism is, that such animals have had innumerable 

 opportunities to learn to do acts about which the experimenter can- 



