AXIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 47 



Imitation. 



To the question, 'Do animals imitate?' science has uni- 

 formly answered, ' Yes.' But so long as the question is left in 

 this general form, no correct answer to it is possible, h will be 

 seen, from the results of numerous experiments soon to be de- 

 scribed, that imitation of a certain sort is not possible for ani- 

 mals, and before entering upon that description it will be helpful 

 to differentiate this matter of imitation into several varieties or 

 aspects. The presence of some sorts of imitation does not im- 

 ply that of other sorts. 



There are, to begin with, the well-known phenomena pre- 

 sented by the imitative birds. The power is extended widely, 

 ranging from the parrot who knows a hundred or more articu- 

 late sounds to the sparrow whom a patient shoemaker taught to 

 get through a tune. Now, if a bird really gets a sound in his 

 mind from hearing it and sets out forthwith to imitate it, as 

 mocking-birds are said at times to do, it is a mystery and de- 

 serves closest study. If a bird, out of a lot of random noises 

 that it makes, chooses those for repetition which are like sounds 

 that he has heard, it is again a mystery ivhy\ though not as in 

 the previous case a mystery hozu^ he does it. The important 

 fact for our purpose is that, though the imitation of sounds is so 

 habitual, there does not appear to be any marked general imita- 

 tive tendency in these birds. There is no proof that parrots do 

 muscular .acts from having seen other parrots do them. But 

 this should be studied. At any rate, until we know what sort 

 of sounds birds imitate, what circumstances or emotional atti- 

 tudes these are connected with, how they learn them and, 

 above all, whether there is in birds which repeat sounds any 

 tendency to imitate in other lines, we cannot, it seems to me, 

 connect these phenomena with anything found in the mammals 

 or use them to advantage in a discussion of animal imitation as 

 the forerunner of human. In what follows they will be left 

 out of account, will be regarded as a specialization removed 

 from the general course of mental development, just as the feath- 

 ers or right aortic arch of birds are particular specializations of 

 no consequence for the phvsical development of mammals. For 



