IMITATION 1QI 
gregarious, we have here a social factor in animal life of no 
slight importance. Just as the higher type of reflective 
imitation is of great value in bringing the human child to 
the level of the adults who form the family and social environ- 
ment, so, too, does the sub-conscious instinctive imitation of 
the lower animals bring the young bird or other creature into 
line with the members of its own species. In broods of chicks 
brought up under experimental conditions, there are often one 
or two more active, vigorous, intelligent, and mischievous 
birds. These are the leaders of the brood; the others are 
their imitators. Their presence raises the general level of 
intelligent activity. Remove them, and the others show a less 
active, less inquisitive, less adventurous life. They seem to 
lack initiative. From which one may infer that imitation 
affords to some extent a means of levelling up the less intelli- 
gent to the standard of the more intelligent ; and of supply- 
ing a stimulus to the development of habits which would 
otherwise be lacking. When a mongrel pup, whose develop- 
ment Dr. Wesley Mills watched and has described, was intro- 
duced to the society of other dogs, its progress was, he tells 
us, ‘‘ extraordinarily rapid.” 
Instinctive imitation thus introduces into the conscious 
situation certain modes of behaviour, and if the development 
of the situation as a whole is pleasurable, there will be a ten- 
dency to its redevelopment, under the guidance of intelli- 
gence, on subsequent occasions. As in the case of other 
instincts and propensities, there is given through inheritance 
a more or less definite outline sketch of social procedure, 
which intelligence further defines, and refines, and shapes to 
more delicate issues. As a rule, however, intelligence does 
not tend to make the imitation as such more perfect. It may 
perfect the behaviour, but not necessarily on imitative lines. 
In the case, however, of the song and call-notes of birds, and 
not improbably the sounds of other animals, there does seem 
a predisposition to render the imitation as such more perfect. 
The facts, as afforded by such birds as the magpie, jay, 
starling, marsh-warbler, and mocking-bird, are familiar ; and 
