IMITATION 189 
other hand any reflective imitation, such as is so important a 
factor in human education, it remains to be seen what may be 
fairly included in this category. 
It is probable that in animals imitation has its foundations 
in instinctive behaviour, of which it may be regarded as the 
characteristically social type. If one of a group of chicks 
learn by casual experience to drink from a tin of water, others 
will run up and peck at the water, and thus learn to drink. 
A hen teaches her little ones to pick up grain or 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 
young jungle pheasants will perish if their pecking responses 
are not thus stimulated ; and Professor Claypole tells me that 
this is also the case with young ostriches hatched in an 
incubator. A little pheasant and guinea-fowl followed two 
older ducklings, one wild, the other tame, and seemed to wait 
upon their bills, to peck when they pecked, and to be guided 
by their actions. It is certainly much easier to bring up 
young birds if older birds are setting an example of eating 
and drinking ; and instinctive acts, such as scratching the 
ground, are performed earlier if imitation be not excluded. 
If a group of chicks have learnt to avoid cinnabar cater- 
pillars, and if then two or three from another group are 
introduced and begin to pick up the caterpillars, the others 
will sometimes again seize them, though they would otherwise 
have left them untouched. One of my chicks, coming upon 
a dead bee, gave the danger or alarm note; another at some 
little distance at once made the same sound. A number of 
similar cases might be given ; but what impresses the observer 
as he watches the early development of a brood of young 
birds, is the presence of an imitative tendency which is 
exemplified in many little ways not easy to describe in detail. 
It is probable, however, that these imitative tendencies or 
propensities are not wholly indefinite. The young birds do 
