182 THE PLAY OP ANIMALS. 



I agree with Spencer in considering the imitative 

 impulse hereditary, but must demur from his assump- 

 tion of the inheritance of acquired characters, and 

 take instead the principle of survival of the fittest, or 

 selection, as the proper ground for a definition. In 

 order to establish this connection, however, it must first 

 be proved that imitation is useful, as I tried to do when 

 I took the ground that it is an instinct which works di- 

 rectly toward the development of intelligence, since its 

 tendency is to render many other instincts to a certain 

 degree superfluous, and so encourage independence in 

 the individual. This view is borne out by the fact 

 that imitation is strongest in the more intelligent ani- 

 mals, such as highly developed birds and monkeys, 

 and that man may be called the imitative animal par 

 excellence. 



Before I proceed to give instances of imitative play, 

 it is necessary to point out briefly that this instinct 

 is not by any means peculiar to gregarious animals, as 

 seems to be the common impression. It is more or 

 less operative in all the higher animals, especially while 

 they are young. The family as well as the herd offers 

 opportunity for its exercise, and we find examples of 



to this observation of sheep: "It is impossible to describe the 

 beauty of their aerial flight when a falcon attempts to snatch one 

 from the flock. Startled, they fall back in a close mass, and then 

 flow out like a living stream, pushing on with waving motion and 

 in sharp angles, fall abruptly to the ground, and then mount 

 straight upward in a column toward the sky, where they form 

 a coiling line like a huge serpent. ... It is remarkable how one 

 flock after another will follow the same path. If, for instance, a 

 bird of prey has disturbed one flock at a certain place, and they 

 in consequence describe such angles, curves, and wavy lines, the 

 next flock will do the same when it comes to that spot, as if it, 

 too, had to escape from the fearful grasp of its enemy." 



