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A kitten of this cat soon learned the same trick,
and practised it ever afterward whenever there was an opportunity.
The parents of many animals, trusting to the principle of imitation in
their young, and more especially to their instinctive or inherited
tendencies, may be said to educate them. We see this when a cat brings a
live mouse to her kittens; and Dureau de la Malle has given a curious
account (in the paper above quoted) of his observations on hawks which
taught their young dexterity, as well as judgment of distances, by first
dropping through the air dead mice and sparrows, which the young
generally failed to catch, and then bringing them live birds and letting
them loose.
Hardly any faculty is more important for the intellectual progress of
man than _Attention_. Animals clearly manifest this power, as when a cat
watches by a hole and prepares to spring on its prey. Wild animals
sometimes become so absorbed when thus engaged that they may be easily
approached. Mr. Bartlett has given me a curious proof of how variable
this faculty is in monkeys.


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