In the twenty-fourth
month Preyer's child began spontaneously to dance to music and to beat
time correctly.
A chapter is devoted to imitative movements. At the end of the fifteenth
week the child would imitate the movement of protruding the lips, at
nine months would cry on hearing other children do so, and at twelve
months used to perform in its sleep imitative movements which had made a
strong impression while awake--e.g., blowing; this shows that dreaming
occurs at least as early as the first year. After the first year
imitative movements are more readily learned than before.
Shaking the head as a sign of negation was found by Preyer, as by other
observers, to be instinctive, and he adopts Darwin's explanation of the
fact--viz., that the satisfied suckling in refusing the breast must
needs move its head from side to side. In the seventeenth month the
child exhibited a definite act of intelligent adjustment, for, desiring
to reach a toy down from a press, it drew a traveling-bag from another
part of the room to stand upon. We mention this incident because it
exhibits the same level of mental development as that of Cuvier's orang,
which, on desiring to reach an object off a high shelf, drew a chair
below the shelf to stand upon.
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