104 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



been known to be mucli alarmed at the first sight of a 

 turtle. " 



The principle of Imitation is strong in naan, and espe- 

 cially, as I have myself observed, with savages. In certain 

 morbid states of the brain this tendency is exaggerated to 

 an extraordinary degree; some hemiplegio patients and oth- 

 ers, at the commencement of inflammatory softening of the 

 brain, nnoonsoiously imitate every word which is uttered, 

 whether in their own or in a foreign language, and every 

 gesture or action which is performed near them.'* Desor'' 

 has remarked that no animal voluntarily imitates an action 

 performed by man, until in the ascending scale we come to 

 monkeys, which are well known to be ridiculous mockers. ' 

 Animals, however, sometimes imitate each other's actions; 

 . thus two species of wolves, which had been reared by dogs, 

 learned to bark, as does sometimes the jackal," but whether 

 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. Dureau de la Malle gives 

 an account" of a dog reared by a cat, who learned to imi- 

 tate 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 afterward practiced durmg his life of thirteen years. 

 Dureau de la Malle' s dog likewise learned from the kittens 

 to play with a ball by rolling it about with his forepaws, 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 



'2 W. C. L.' Martin, "Nat. Hist, of Mammalia," 1841, p. 405. 



» Dr. Bateman "On Aphasia," 1810, p. 110. 



" Quoted by Vogt, "Memoire sur les Microcephales, " 1867, p. 168. 



16 "The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, ' ' vol. i. p. 27. 



" "Annales des So. Nat." (1st Series), tom. xxii. p. 397. 



