THE DESCENT OR ORIGIN OF MAN 105 



learned the same trick, and practiced it ever afterward 

 whenever 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 generally 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 ap- 

 proached. 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 atten- 

 tion. 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 other hand, a monkey which 

 carefully attended to him could always be trained. 



It is almost superfluous to state that animals have excel- 

 lent Memories for persons and places. A baboon ^t the Cape 

 of Good Hope, as I have been informed by Sir Andrew 

 Smith, recognized him with joy after an absence of nine 

 months. I had a dog who was savage and averse to all 



