254 Studies in Animal Behavior 



upright. She did not pick out the essential acts 

 that led to success. She perceived that the nut could 

 be secured by going through a certain series of mo- 

 tions, and the useless movements were gradually 

 eliminated with an average shortening of the time 

 necessary to gain the desired end. So far as her 

 progress is concerned after she had removed the 

 cork from the bottle, she gave no evidence of clearly 

 perceiving how anything that she did furthered her 

 purpose. Apparently she did not clearly apprehend 

 that if she turned the bottle upside down the nut 

 would fall down within reach of her fingers, al- 

 though she had seen the nut fall dozens of times. 

 In the course of her intent efforts her mind seemed 

 so absorbed with the object of desire that it was 

 never focussed on the means of attaining that ob- 

 ject. There was no deliberation, and no discrimi- 

 nation between the important and the unimportant 

 elements of her behavior. The gradually increasing 

 facility of her performances depended on the appar- 

 ently unconscious elimination of useless movements. 

 The previous experiments were modified by giv- 

 ing Lizzie a nut in a screw-cap Mason jar without 

 a cover. She could easily reach into the wide mouth 

 and get the nut, but she picked up the jar instead 

 and turned it about. Having accidentally dropped 

 the jar, she scuttled away in alarm, but she cautiously 

 approached it again, turned it over and got the nut. 

 Then she picked up the jar, carried it to her perch, 

 rolling it over and over with her hands and feet in 



