THE INTELLIGENCE OF MAMMALS 257 
which are most closely related to their own instinctive 
movements. There may be no awareness of any advantage to 
be gained thereby, as in the familiar imitation of sounds by 
birds. Magpies, ravens, mocking-birds and especially parrots 
attempt to repeat various sounds which they are accustomed 
to hear. Their efforts, imperfect at first, improve with 
repetition. Making a sound like one which is heard seems for 
some reason to afford these birds an agreeable experience. 
As Baldwin would say, hearing the sound is followed by an 
effort to “reinstate the stimulus” and so gives rise to a 
“circular reaction.” Variations of its own notes which 
approach the sounds heard become “stamped in,” and the bird 
gradually comes to imitate the sounds more closely, much 
as we gradually improve upon the accuracy of our own 
movements in playing ball or tennis. In this imitation we 
need suppose no element of transferred association. Based 
perhaps upon a primary instinct to utter notes in response 
to the notes which it hears, which we often find in young 
birds, the tendency of birds to imitate sounds involves but 
the rudimentary form of intelligence required for the forma- 
tion of simple associations. 
There is comparatively little imitation which is based on 
a cold calculation of the advantages derived from copying 
another animal. The imitation which is shown in a certain 
stage of the life of the child is intimately related to a certain 
satisfaction derived from attaining conformity to copy. 
This trait the child has in common with the bird. Probably 
our own unconscious or half conscious imitation of the pro- 
nunciation and mannerisms of the people we live with is a 
phenomenon of a similar kind. How far this kind of 
imitation occurs in the mammals has not been clearly 
brought out, but there are many indications of its influence 
in several of our common domesticated species. 
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