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, its kittens have been known to imitate
the mother. Darwin tells of a cat that used to put its paw into the
mouth of a narrow milk-jug and then lick it off, and that its kittens
soon learned the same trick. In all such cases, hasty observers say
the mother taught its young. Certainly the young learned, but there
was no effort to teach on the part of the parent. Unconscious
imitation did it all. Our "Modern School of Nature Study" would say
that the old sow teaches her pigs to root when they follow her afield,
rooting in their little ways as she does. But would she not root if
she had no pigs, and would not the pigs root if they had no mother?
All acts necessary to an animal's life and to the continuance of the
species are instinctive; the creature does not have to be taught them,
nor are they acquired by imitation. The bird does not have to be
taught to build its nest or to fly, nor the beaver to build its dam or
its house, nor the otter or the seal to swim, nor the young of mammals
to suckle, nor the spider to spin its web, nor the grub to weave its
cocoon. Nature does not trust these things to chance; they are too
vital. The things that an animal acquires by imitation are of
secondary importance in its life. As soon as the calf, or the lamb, or
the colt can get upon its feet, its first impulse is to find the udder
of its dam. It requires no instruction or experience to take this
important step.

How far the different species of song-birds acquire each their
peculiar songs by imitation is a question that has not yet been fully
settled. That imitation has much to do with it admits of little doubt.
The song of a bird is of secondary importance in its life. Birds
reared in captivity, where they have never he