254 THE INTELLIGENCE OF MAMMALS 
movements of the others, and by virtue of this trait the 
fishes keep together and escape common dangers. A 
similar kind of imitation is met with even in insects. Ants, 
according to Wasmann, not infrequently imitate one an- 
other’s acts, and other observers have remarked upon the 
same proclivity in bees and termites. 
Imitation plays an especially important réle in the life 
of birds. According to Lloyd Morgan, “If one of a group 
of chicks learn by casual experience to drink from a tin of 
of water, others will run and peck at the water, and thus 
learn to drink. A hen teaches her little ones to pick up 
grain and other food by pecking on the ground and dropping 
suitable materials before them, while they seemingly imitate 
her action in seizing the grain. One may make chicks and 
pheasants peck by simulating the action of a hen with a 
pencil point or pair of fine forceps. According to Mr. 
Peal the Assamese find that the young jungle pheasants will 
perish if their pecking responses are not thus artifically 
stimulated; and Professor Claypole tells me that this is 
also the case with young ostriches hatched in an incubator.” 
Chicks avoid objects which they perceive arouse alarm in 
others, and if they see other chicks pecking at things of 
which they stand a little in awe they frequently muster up 
courage and follow their companions. 
Birds learn to fear certain enemies, such as hawks, at 
least in part, through their instinctive response to the signs 
of alarm in other birds. Their instinct of following guides 
them in their migration routes, in which, despite the con- 
tention of Herr Gitke, their course is in all probability a 
matter of tradition. 
In contrast to the above cases which may be regarded as 
instinctive responses to particular stimuli are those instances 
in which an animal more or less deliberately copies the actions 
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