72 Animal Intelligence 



It should be noted that, although cats 3 and 4 had had 

 some experience in getting out of boxes by clawing at loops 

 and turning buttons, they had never had anything at all 

 like a thumb latch to claw at, nor had they ever seen the 

 door opened by its use, nor did they even have any experi- 

 ence of the fact that the part of the box where the thumb 

 piece was was the door. And we may insert here, what 

 will be stated more fully later, that there was displayed 

 no observation of the surroundings or deliberation upon 

 them. It was just a mad scramble to get out. 



Three dogs (i, 2 and 3) were given a chance to liberate 

 themselves from this same box. 2 and 3, who were rather 

 inactive, failed to even push the thumb piece down. No. i , 

 who was very active, did push it down at the same time 

 that she happened to be pushing against the door. She 

 repeated this and formed the association as shown in the 

 curve on page 60. She had had experience only of es- 

 caping by pulling a loop of string. 



Out of 6 cats who were put in the box whose door opened 

 by a button, not one failed, in the course of its impulsive 

 activity, to push the button around. Sometimes it was 

 clawed to one side from below ; sometimes vigorous pressure 

 on the top turned it around ; sometimes it was pushed up 

 by the nose. No cat who was given repeated trials failed 

 to form a perfect association between the sight of the in- 

 terior of that box and the proper movements. Some of 

 these cats had been in other boxes where pulling a loop of 

 string liberated them, 3 and 4 had had considerable experi- 

 ence with the boxes and probably had acquired a general 

 tendency to claw at loose objects. 10, n and 12 had never 

 been in any box before. The curves are on pages 41 and 43. 



Of two dogs, one, when placed in a similar but larger 

 box, succeeded in hitting the button in such a way as to let 



