216 The Carnivora. 
then placed near the door, smelt it once, and again ran 
up stairs in a state of much agitation. For some time, nothing 
would persuade him to enter the kitchen where his mother 
had died, and I observed him once peering in, as though he 
expected to find the awesome thing still lying there as he 
had seen it when he first experienced the shock of the 
mystery of death. 
An important part of the knowledge of many animals is 
derived from imitation, and man, the most intelligent of all, 
is perhaps most indebted to this faculty for individual pro- 
gress. Indeed, some individuals among us appear to possess 
little else than the imitative faculty. The Chinese have con- 
structed exact imitations of European machines, ships, &c., 
without even knowing what was the object of the different 
parts. Monkeys, with their very inferior moral faculties, are 
highly imitative; so are savages, and those wretched pre- 
sentments of humanity, microcephalous idiots, in whom the 
moral sense appears to be wholly wanting, or at all events 
of the lowest character. Imitation, then, though valuable in 
conjunction with other faculties, would seem to be of com- 
paratively little importance in itself, as a measure of the 
general intelligence. Dogs, so far as I have observed, are 
singularly deficient in the imitative faculty. The “backing” 
of pointers and setters may be to some extent imitative, but 
much is also due to training; and steady “backing” on all 
occasions is a valuable accomplishment, which, as sportsmen 
know, cannot be depended on. No doubt, as in training 
retrievers, the youngster working with an old dog is materially 
assisted by seeing what his unconscious preceptor does. But 
there is really very little that he can learn by imitation. In 
his first lessons, he sees the old dog run after the ball, and 
bring it to his master, or go into the water and retrieve the 
stuffed ducks—an excellent object for this purpose, by the 
way. It is often the most difficult part of his training to 
induce him to take the water and bring the object right to 
hand, without dawdling or allowing his attention to be dis- 
