194: THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 



ishing how by a hasty glance they could detect the best 

 route. And now began the running and leaping with 

 such zeal and at such a breakneck speed that the play 

 of cats and foxes seemed mere child's i^lay beside it. 

 "With every moment the pupils grew more agile, rushing 

 up and down trees, over roofs and walls with a rapidity 

 that proved how necessary it was for the birds of the 

 garden to be on their guard.^' 



Turning now to birds, I begin where we left the 

 four-footed animals, for among the former imitation of 

 parents is much more the rule than among mammals, 

 and especially so with singing birds. I should like to 

 call attention, in this connection, to the position of 

 Wallace, who, though he found that the facts did not 

 bear him out in the attempt to refer everything to imi- 

 tation, has still given us some valuable reflections on its 

 pedagogical aspects. There are cases on record of birds 

 which have been reared apart from any of their species 

 and never learned their characteristic song perfectly, 

 while on the strength of other observations it seems just 

 as certain that instinct alone is sufficient to teach them 

 not only sim.ple calls, but genuine song. Eomanes's con- 

 clusion seems to be the right one — namely, that song 

 and the other general capacities of birds are instinctive, 

 but can never be so quickly nor so perfectly expressed 

 as when the parents serve as models.* That the value 

 of imitation is not to be despised is seen in the many 

 cases where young birds are brought up by some other 

 kind, whose song they adopt, showing that their imi- 

 tative impulse is stronger than the hereditary disposi- 

 tion to the song of their own kind. "We are again in- 



* Weinlanrl, too, reached essentially the same conclusion after 

 years of experience (Der zoolo^ische Garten, iii, 1862). 



