"Setz dich! Pfui! Zurueck! Vorwaerts! Allez! Fass!
Apporte! Such! Verloren! Pst! Lass! Hierher! Brav! Leid's nicht!
Ruhig! Wahr Dich! Hab Acht! Was ist das! Pfui Vogel! Pfui Hase! Halt!"
prove that the bird-dog understands the meaning of the sounds and
syllables and words heard as far as he needs to understand them. The
training in the English language accomplishes the same result with
"Down! Down charge! Steady! Toho! Fetch! Hold up!" as the training in
the French language, with yet other words--so that we can by no means
assume any hereditary connection whatever between the quality of the
sound heard and the movement or arrest of movement to be executed,
such as may perhaps exist in the case of the chick just hatched which
follows the clucking of the hen. Rather does the dog learn afresh in
every case the meaning of the words required for hunting, just as the
speechless child comprehends the meaning of the first words of its
future language without being able to repeat them himself--e. g.,
"Give! Come! Hand! Sh! Quiet!" Long before the child's mechanism of
articulation is so far developed that these expressions can be
produced by him, the child manifests his understanding of them
unequivocally by corresponding movements, by gestures and looks, by
obedience.

No doubt this behavior varies in individual cases, inasmuch as in some
few the imitative articulation may be to some extent earlier developed
than the understanding. There are many children who even in their first
year have a monkey-like knack at imitation and repeat all sorts of
things like parrots without guessing the sense of them. Here, however,
it is to be borne in mind that such an echo-speech appears only after
the _first_ understanding of some spoken word can be demonstrated; in no
case before the fourth month. Lindner relates that when he one day
observed that his child of eighteen weeks was gazing at the swinging
pendulum of the house-clock, he went with him to it, saying,
"Tick-tack," in time with the pendulum; and when he afterward called
out to the child, who was no longer looking at the clock, "Tick-tack!"
this call was answered, at first with delay, a little later immediately,
by a turning of the look toward the clock. This proved that there was
understanding long before the first imitation of words. Progress now
became pretty rapid, so that at the end of the seventh month the
questions, "Where is your eye? ear? head? mouth? nose? the table? chair?