EDUCATION IN ANIMALS. In some birds and mam mals it has been observed that the young receive parental educa tion. This varies in its detail in different cases, for it may be little more than the supplying of a liberating stimulus or an incentive to action, while in more complicated expressions the education amounts to careful training in the way in which cer tain things should be done. It is advantageous in lessening the time required for learning by individual experiment, and in les sening the risks of this self-education. Moreover, there is some profitable handing-on of the gains of parental experience—a sim ple form of extra-organismal heritage.
To begin with simple cases, we may notice how a dabchick, with its young ones on its back, depresses itself in the stream and thus forces them to begin to learn to find their way about in the water. A grebe has been seen ducking one of its offspring, as if accustoming it to immersion. The great crested grebe often dives after fish while carrying the young ones on its back, and they soon learn their lesson. Although young birds do not require to be taught to fly, the parents may force or encourage them to make a beginning, sometimes tempting them with food. A guillemot may push its young one off the brooding-ledge on to a slope leading steeply to the sea. T. A. Coward notes that "a more usual method is for the old bird to seize the unfortunate by one wing, and, flying out with it until clear of surf and rocks, let it drop." The young bird opens its wings and flutters. It takes its first flight, diagon ally down to the sea, where it also takes its first, somewhat com pulsory, dive, and follows this by beginning to swim. It is waited on by its parents or by one of them, and gets some help with its meals until it is able to fend for itself. There are several similar cases well authenticated.
Some kinds of education take the form of graduated meals, as has been observed in birds of prey. From prepared pieces of flesh, to begin with, the nestlings are gradually trained to tackle more or less intact booty. L. J. Hobhouse refers to the expertness shown by some young woodpeckers in getting at the seeds of fir-cones, but he points out that the parent woodpeckers bring their young ones first the seeds themselves, then partly opened cones, and finally intact ones. "The method of preparing the family dinner is at least as much a tradition as an instinct." It is the outcome of both teaching and learning.
Among mammals the instruction is almost always on the mother's part. The carnivore often brings a living captive to the den and sets it free in presence of the young ones. This serves as a liberating stimulus to instinctive capacities, but it also affords some training. In many cases, e.g., foxes and stoats, the mother takes her offspring with her on her hunting expeditions, and they gradually learn their business. The instinctive basis is, of course, present, but its exercise under maternal control may continue for months. Tregarthen describes circumstantially the detailed instruction given by the mother otter to her cubs. It includes the long alphabet of country-sounds, the fit and proper ways of diving and lying perdu, the methods of capturing different kinds of booty, and the recognized ways of eating trout, eel and frog. It may be safely said that too little attention has been given to the factor of education in developing animal behaviour. (See also PSYCHOLOGY, COMPARATIVE.) (J. A. TH.)