554 



STUDIES ON THE MENTAL LIFE OF ANIMALS. 



that of the dog and cat; its hereditary tendencies, derived from phys- 

 ical conditions, are less suited than are those of the dog- or cat to per- 

 mit a prompt reaction to the definite impressions of these experiments. 

 On the other hand, it is not ver}- easy to distinguish, in the behavior of 

 two species of animals, the part played by individual intelligence and 

 that taken by heredity, race, etc. We have not here an}' precise indi- 

 cations which would permit us to class, hnally, these 

 animals in the scale of intelligence; the problem can 

 only be solved by complex researches upon the devel- 

 opment of attention, memory, activity, etc. The 

 present experiments enable us to say, however, that 

 the chicken ranks below the dog and the cat and 

 that, as to these, the dog generally appears as the more intelligent. 



V 





Fig. 8. — Dog No. 1 in 

 box CO. (Thorndike 

 p. 33, fig. 11.) 



IV. 



Experimentx concerning imitation oud the j>s:i/ch(>l(>(/lcnl life of ani- 

 mals. — To the question. "Do animals imitated' science has uniformly 

 answered, "yes." But, put in this way, the question is too general; 

 there are several kinds of imitation, not a single species. 



There are, to begin with, the well-known phenomena presented by the imitative 

 bird?. The power is extended widely, ranging from the parrot who knows a hun- 

 dred or more articulate 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 

 deserves closest study. Jf 

 a bird, out of a lot of ran- 

 dom noises that it makes, 

 chooses those for repeti- 

 tion which are like sounds 

 that he has heard, it is 

 again a mystery why, 

 though not as in the pre- 

 vious case a mystery how, 

 he does it. The important 

 fact for our pui-pose is 

 that, though the imitation 

 of sounds is so habitual, there does not appear to be any marked general imitative 

 tendency in these birds. There is no proof that parrots do muscular acts from hav- 

 ing seen other parrots do them. At any rate, until we know what sort of sounds 

 birds imitate, what circumstances or emotional attitudes these are connected with, 

 how they learn them, and, above all, w^^ether there is in birds which repeat sounds 

 any tendency to imitate in other lines, we can not, 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. « 



WA\_AAAA/Wy^ 



1 in box O. (Thorndike, p. 31, fig. 12.) Compare 

 ourve of cat 3, in box K, supra. 



« Thorndike, loc. cit., p. 47. 



