MENTAL, POWERS. 71 



this can be called voluntary imitation is another question. Birds 

 Imitate the songs of their parents, and sometimes of other birds; 

 and parrots are notorious imitators of any sound which they often 

 hear. Bureau de la Malle gives an account'" of a dog reared by a 

 cat, who learned to imitate the well-known action of a cat licking 

 her paws, and thus washing her ears and face; this was also 

 witnessed by the celebrated naturalist Audouin. I have received 

 several confirmatory accounts; in one of these, a dog had not been 

 suckled by a cat, but had been brought up with one, together 

 with kittens, and had thus acquired the above habit, which he 

 ever afterwards practiced during his life of thirteen years. Bureau 

 de la Malle's dog likewise learned from the kittens to play with a 

 ball by rolling it about with his fore paws, and springing on it. 

 A correspondent assures me that a cat in his house used to put 

 her paws into jugs of milk having too narrow a mouth for her 

 head. A kitten of this cat soon learned the same trick, and prac- 

 ticed it ever afterwards, wiienever there was an opportunity. 



The parents of many animals, trusting to the principle of 

 imitation in their young, and more especially to their instinctive 

 or inherited tendencies, may be said to educate them. We see 

 this when a cat brings a live mouse to her kittens; and Bureau 

 de la Malle has given a curious account (in the paper above 

 quoted) of his observations on hawks which taught their young 

 dexterity, as well as judgment of distances, by first dropping 

 through the air dead mice and sparrows, which the young gen- 

 erally failed to catch, and then bringing them live birds and 

 letting them loose. 



Hardly any faculty is more important for the intellectual 

 progress of man than Attention. Animals clearly manifest this 

 power, as when a cat watches by a hole and prepares to spring 

 on its prey. Wild animals sometimes become so absorbed when 

 thus engaged, that they may be easily approached. Mr. Bartlett 

 has given me a curious proof how variable this faculty is in 

 monkeys. A man who trains monkeys to act in plays, used to 

 purchase common kinds from the Zoological Society at the price 

 of five pounds for each; but he offered to give double the price, 

 if he might keep three or four of them for a few days, in order 

 to select one. When asked how he could possibly learn so soon, 

 whether a particular monkey would turn out a good actor, he 

 answered that it all depended on their power of attention. If, 

 when he was talking and explaining anything to a monkey, its 

 attention was easily distracted, as by a fly on the wall or other 

 trifling object, the case was hopeless. If he tried by punishment 

 to make an inattentive monkey act, it turned sulky. On the 



" 'Annales des Sc. Nat.' (1st Series), torn. xxii. p. 397. 



