528 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



encouragements, reproaches, and appeals, calculated to stimulate 

 the natural tendency to imitation. With some species of birds this 

 language too is taught; the individuals collect every morning and 

 evening in chattering groups, and the young, enjoying the benefit of 

 a social conversation, easily learn to sing and chatter. Singing birds 

 sometimes, too, give one another lessons without thinking of it. 

 Some birds sing badly when they have grown up alone, without the 

 fellowship of companions of their species; others readily learn the 

 songs of strange species, and even of man. Dureau de la Malle 

 taught a starling to whistle the Marseillaise, and the bird in turn 

 taught its fellow starlings of the neighborhood. These abnormal 

 acquisitions, however, have not the fixity of hereditary instincts, and 

 are easily forgotten unless constant care is exercised to preserve them 

 being, in this respect, very much like what is learned in the schools 

 for the examinations. 



Numerous facts similar to those we have cited have been col- 

 lected by naturalists, travelers, and observers concerning education 

 among mammals. The mother bear, for example, takes great pains 

 in the training of her cubs; she teaches them to walk, climb, and eat, 

 and inflicts punishments in the shape of cuffs and bites to insure suc- 

 cess; and the cubs never resist, even if they are larger and stronger 

 than their mother. A female elephant has been seen giving swim- 

 ming lessons to her calf, and correcting it when it blundered. Work- 

 ing animals instruct their young by associating them in their labors. 

 A female beaver has been observed to cut down a willow, gnaw the 

 bark, and trim off the branches, while her young imitated her, and 

 finally helped her carry a limb to the water. 



When lions were still numerous and easily observed in southern 

 Africa, they were sometimes seen instructing one- another in volun- 

 tary gymnastics, and practicing their leaps, making a bush play the 

 part of the absent game. Moffat tells the story of a lion, which had 

 missed a zebra by miscalculating the distance, repeating the jump 

 several times for his own instruction; two of his comrades coming 

 upon him while he was engaged in the exercise, he led them around 

 the rock to show them how matters stood, and then, returning to the 

 starting point, completed the lesson by making a final leap. The 

 animals kept roaring during the whole of the curious scene, " talking 

 together," as the native who watched them said. By the aid of in- 

 dividual training of this kind, industrial animals become apter as 

 they grow older; old birds, for instance, constructing more artistic 

 nests than young ones, and little mammals like mice becoming more 

 adroit with age. Yet, however ancient in the life of the species these 

 acquisitions may be, they have not the solidity of primordial in- 

 stincts, and are lost rapidly if not used. 



