82 THE DESCENT OF MAN, 



in their own or in a foreign language, and every ges' are or 

 action which is performed near them.* Desorf has re- 

 marked tliat no animal voluntarily imitates an action per- 

 formed by man, until in the ascending scale we come to 

 monkeys, which are well known to be ridiculous mockers. 

 Animals, however, sometimes imitate each other^s actions ; 

 thus two species of wolves, which had been reared by dogs, 

 learned to bark, as does sometimes the ^jackal 4 but whether 

 this can be called voluntary imitation is another question. 

 Birds imitate the songs of their parents, and sometimes of 

 other birds; and parrots are notorious imitators of any sound 

 Avhich they often hear. Dureau de la Malle gives an account 

 of a dog reared by a cat^ Who learned to imitate the well- 

 known action of a cat lickiflg her paws, and thus washing 

 her ears and face; thi^ was also witnessed by the celebrated 

 naturalist Audouin. I have received several confirmatory 

 accounts; in one of these, a dog had not been suckled by a 

 cat, but had been brought Up with one, together with 

 kittens, and had thus acquired the above habit, which he 

 ever afterward practiced during his life of thirteen years. 

 Dureau dela Malla's dog likewise learned from the kittens 

 to play with a ball by rolling it about with his fore paws 

 and springing on it. A correspondent assures me that a 

 cat in his house used to put her paws into jugs of milk 

 having too narrow a mouth for her head. A kitten of this 

 cat soon learned the same trick, and practiced it ever 

 afterward whenever there was an opportunity. 



The parents of many animals, trusting to the principle 

 of imitation in their young, and more especially to their 

 instinctive or inherited tendencies, may be said to educate 

 them. We see this when a cat brings a live mouse to her 

 kittens; and Dureau de la Malle has given a curious ac- 

 count (in the paper above quoted) of his observations on 

 hawks which taught their young dexterity, as well as judg- 

 ment of distances, by first dropping through the air dead 

 mice and sparrows, which the young generally failed to 



*Dr. Bateman " On Aphasia." 1870, p. 110. 



f QuQted by Vogt, " Memoire sur les Microcephales," 1867, p. 168. 



X " The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication," vol, 



i, p. 27. 



g " Anuales des Sc. Nat." (1st series), torn, xxii, p. 397, 



