Habit and Instinct. 455 



the titlark." Mr. Wallace, who quotes this, adds,* " For 

 young birds to acquire a new song correctly, they must be 

 taken out of hearing of their parents very soon, for in the 

 first three or four days they have already acquired some 

 knowledge of the parent's notes, which they afterwards 

 imitate." Bureau de la Malle, as quoted by Mr. Bomanes,f 

 describes how he taught a starling the " Marseillaise," and 

 from this bird all the other starlings in a canton to which 

 he took it are stated to have learned the air ! 



That dogs, monkeys, and other mammalia have powers 

 of imitation needs no illustration. And when we remember 

 that it is only the imitation of strange and unusual actions 

 that arrests our attention, while the imitation of normal 

 activities is likely to pass unnoticed, we may, I think, fairly 

 surmise that imitation is by no means an unimportant 

 factor in the acquisition and development of habits. And 

 where the young animal is surrounded during the early 

 plastic and imitative period of life by its own kith and kin, 

 imitation will undoubtedly have a conservative tendency. 



The education of young animals by their parents has 

 also a conservative tendency. Mr. Spalding's observations 

 show that the flight of birds is instinctive ; but the parent 

 birds normally aid the development of the instincts by 

 instruction. Ants, as we have seen, are instructed in the 

 business of ant-life. Dogs and cats train their young. 

 And Darwin tells us, on the authority of Youatt,J that 

 lambs turned out without their mothers are very liable to 

 eat poisonous herbs. 



We may say, then, with regard to the influence of 

 intelligence on instinctive activities, that it may lead them 

 to vary along certain definite lines of increased adaptation ; 

 that it may, in some cases, lead them to vary along divergent 

 lines, and hence tend to render stereotyped instincts more 

 plastic ; and that, through imitation and instruction, it 

 may tend to render instinctive habits more uniform in a 

 community, and hence, if the habits are tending to vary 



* "Contributions," etc., p. 222. 

 t "Mental Evolution in Animals," p. 222. $ "On Sheep," p. 404. 



