252 CHILDHOOD OF ANIMALS 



to the same action as it excites their mother. Nor does the common 

 action of gregarious animals really imply imitation. The playful 

 stampedes of cattle, the game of " follow my leader " indulged in 

 by sheep and goats and antelopes, the migrations of mammals and 

 birds do not necessarily mean more than similar response to similar 

 stimulation. 



Nevertheless there are many facts which make it difficult to 

 doubt that the higher animals, especially when they are young, 

 perform actions, consciously or unconsciously, because they hava 

 just been performed by other animals or by human beings. I do 

 not think that this happens whilst the young creatures are quite 

 infantile, but only after the period which is well described as " begin- 

 ning to take notice. " The action must be more or less like one 

 that the animal would naturally do, or if it be complicated, it must 

 be built up step by step out of separate actions which are not too 

 unfamiliar or incongruous with natural habits. I picture, rather 

 than explain, the process to myself by supposing that in animals 

 with well-developed grey matter in the brain actions write some 

 sort of record of themselves in the brain, apart from the necessary 

 reflex brain-and-muscle mechanism by which they are controlled. 

 This record can be excited in various ways, and its excitement may 

 set going the actual mechanism. When the young animal's atten- 

 tion and curiosity are aroused by the action of another animal, 

 the records already stored in its brain are awakened, and the most 

 closely corresponding reflex mechanisms are " called up " and set 

 going. Consciousness is not necessarily involved, but the process 

 is a result of organic memory. 



However it be explained, action which is the result of a corre- 

 sponding action becomes increasingly important in the higher 

 animals. Wild animals acquire or at least perfect many of their 

 capacities in this way. The process of taming and training animals 

 is based on it. How far birds learn from one another or from their 

 elders I do not know, and it is a much disputed question. It seems 

 to be fairly certain that building of nests does not come about by 

 any process that may be called imitation, and that birds reared 

 by hand or away from their allies will in due course build according 

 to the pattern of their kind, although their first attempts may not 

 be so good as later efforts. The ordinary call-notes and narrow 

 range of voice that occur in most of the families of birds are similarly 

 inborn, but the higher and more complicated kinds of song certainly 

 owe much to practice and emulation. Singing birds that are reared 



