Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/34

24 if any idea at all. It would, however, demand considerable individual experience of the animal doing the imitating with the apparatus with which it is to work. The results so far obtained are too meagre to furnish us with a basis for generalization. They have suggested, however, the following questions as working hypotheses. Is it not rather futile to expect imitation above the instinctive grade of an animal without first giving it considerable individual experience with the mechanism it is to operate? Can we by allowing a bird to open a box in its own way establish a working basis for interest and attention so that if it sees the apparatus worked in a different and perhaps better way it will be led to add just a little more of the mental than is required in instinctive imitation?

A concrete illustration may help us here. The male English Sparrow toward the last of Series B, when the female English Sparrows were put in, ran round and round the box after them. This was instinctive. But he found it possible to open the box after the strings were changed to the left of the door only after the female Cowbird had done it once. If he followed her example even without appreciating the end (and I am inclined to think he did) then it is ever so slightly intelligent. At any rate we shall see what later series with many different kinds of birds will bring forth.

It would be natural to suppose that birds of any species would more readily imitate particularly in an instinctive way the actions of those of their own species. A priori a definite act which is to be imitated would be accompanied by more of general suggestiveness if done by one of their own kind. However, intelligent imitation based on so much of individual experience as was the case with this male English Sparrow, it would seem, need not be necessarily limited by the fact that the act is performed by a bird of another species. In fact it may be found that imitation of this sort is a mark of superiority of some birds over others depending as it probably does on a greater amount of activity and therefore having a better basis in a richer individual experience. It is not impossible that imitation of the instinctive kind is more natural and likely with the same species; intelligent imitation less so.

This series of tests was made with the birds in a somewhat