WAYS OF NATURE 



the nails, belongs to a different and to a higher order 

 of conduct. 



A complete statement of the factors that shape 

 the lives of the lower orders would include three 

 terms — instinct, imitation (though, doubtless, this 

 is instinctive), and experience. Instinct is, of course, 

 the main factor, and by this term we mean that 

 which prompts an animal or a man to act spon- 

 taneously, without instruction or experience. All 

 creatures are imitative, and man himself not the 

 least so. I had a visit the other day from a woman 

 who had spent the last two years in London, and 

 her speech betrayed the fact ; she had quite uncon- 

 sciously caught certain of the English mannerisms of 

 speech. A few years in the South will give the New 

 Englander the Southern accent, and vice versa. The 

 young are, of course, more imitative than the old. 

 Children imitate their parents; the young writer 

 imitates his favorite author. 



Animals of different species closely associated 

 will imitate each other. A lady writes me that she 

 has a rabbit that lives in a cage with a monkey, and 

 that it has caught many of the monkey's ways. I 

 can well believe it. Dogs reared with cats have been 

 known to acquire the cat habit of licking the paws 

 and then washing the ears and face. Wolves reared 

 with dogs learn to bark, and who has not seen a dog 

 draw its face as if trying to laugh as its master does ? 

 When a cat has been taught to sit up for its food, 

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