196 THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 



thought that the manner in which fowls drink, by filling 

 their beaks, lifting up their heads, and allowing the 

 water to run down by its gravity, would have been spe- 

 cially taught by instinct; but this is not so, for I was 

 most positively assured that the chickens of a brood 

 reared by themselves generally required their beaks to be 

 pressed into a trough, but if there were older chick- 

 ens present, who had learned to drink, the younger 

 ones imitated their movements, and thus acquired the 

 art."* 



It is probable that the imitative impulse comes into 

 play in similar fashion many times in an animal's life, 

 when we are entirely unable to prove its presence or 

 influence. 



The imitation by birds of the songs of other species 

 is very common. It would be an endless task to cite 

 even a portion of such descriptions as are found, for ex- 

 ample, in the works of Naumann, Beckstein, Russ, the 

 two Brehms, the Miillers, etc. I therefore confine my- 

 self to a choice among examples where the imitative 

 impulse appears in greatest perfection, where not only 

 bird voices but those of men, as well as sounds like the 

 creaking of doors or a mill wheel, playing on pipes, and 

 spoken words are faithfully copied. It should be noted 

 that this strange habit is not peculiar to birds which lack 

 a song of their own,f such as parrots and the crow fam- 

 ily, but appears in good singers as well. The wild 

 canary, which has a great talent for mimicking other 



* Romanes, Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 229. [Lloyd Mor- 

 gan's more recent experiments (Habit and Instinct) confirm this 

 but go to show that after the wetting of the beak the young bird 

 throws up the head and swallows instinctively.] 



f As Romanes seems to think, Mental Evolution in Animals, 

 p. 222. 



