212 The Dancing Mouse 



31 tests in this labyrinth. The number of tests per day 

 varied, as is indicated in Table 36, from i to 4. The results 

 of the tests, so far as errors and times are in question, appear 

 in the table. T at the head of a column is an abbreviation 

 for time, E for errors. 



The dancers did not learn to escape from this labyrinth 

 easily and quickly. In fact, the average time of the thirty- 

 first test (198") is considerably longer than that of the first 

 (130"). The number of errors decreased, it is true, but even 

 for the last test it was 6.6 as compared with only a little more 

 than twice that number for the first test. The last column 

 of the table furnishes convincing proof of the truth of the 

 statement that the animals did not acquire a perfect labyrinth- 

 A habit. Was this due to inability to learn so complex a 

 path, or to the fact that the method is not adapted to their 

 nature? Observation of the behavior of the mice in the 

 experiments enables me to say with certainty that there was 

 no motive for escape sufficiently strong to establish a habit 

 of following the direct path. Often, especially after a few 

 experiences in the maze, a dancer would wander back and 

 forth in the alleys and central courts, dancing much of the 

 time and apparently exploring its surroundings instead of 

 persistently trying to escape. This behavior, and the time 

 and error results of the accompanying table, lead me to con- 

 clude that the labyrinth method, as it has been employed in 

 the study of the intelligence of several other mammals, is not 

 a satisfactory test of the ability of the dancer to profit by 

 experience. That the fault is not in the labyrinth itself is 

 proved by the results which I obtained with common mice. 



On the basis of two tests per day, two common mice, a 

 white one and a gray one, quickly learned to escape from 

 labyrinth A by the shortest path. The time of escape for 

 the gray individual (Table 37) decreased from 180" in the 



