180 K. S. LASHLEY 



7. Taking food from a small table placed in front of the cage 

 and about six inches above its floor. The animals had to reach 

 through the meshes of the netting to get the food in this situation. 



Except when holding out food in his hands the experimenter 

 remained at a distance of about four feet from the animals during 

 the observations. The animals were rather wild at first and 

 about two weeks were spent in handling them and accustoming 

 them to the experimenter before the observations on the pre- 

 ferential use of the hands were begun. The two were markedly 

 different in temperament. The smaller (No. 1) was gentle and 

 almost fearless, rarely hesitating to take food from the experi- 

 menter's hands. The larger (No. 2), on the contrary, was 

 exceedingly wild and fierce, constantly trying to break his strap, 

 when out of the cage, and striking and biting at the experimenter 

 when food was offered. 



The tests were made at irregular times but several of the situa- 

 tions were included in each day's observations in order to con- 

 trol temporal variations in the use of the hands. With few 

 exceptions the results of observations on different days are in 

 agreement so that we may be sure that they are not due to a 

 temporary injury of one or other hand. 



PREFERENTIAL USE OF THE HANDS WITHOUT TRAINING 



The number of times which the right and left hands were 

 used by the two animals in each of the seven situations is given 

 in table 1. There is a considerable amount of variation, de- 

 pending upon the different environments in which the animals 

 were placed, but the behavior of each animal is fairly character- 

 istic throughout. No. 2 was obviously right-handed, using the 

 right hand almost four times as frequently as the left. No." 1 

 showed a less marked preference for the use of either hand and 

 a much greater adaptability to the different situations. In 

 picking up food from the floor of the cage, where he was least 

 influenced by the presence of the experimenter, he used his 

 left hand in over 90% of the cases observed; a fact which indi- 

 cates a decided left-handedness. Where food was offered in the 

 experimenter's hands, however, he reached for it in 81% of the 

 trials with the hand homologous to that used by the experimenter. 

 Under like conditions No. 2 was not influenced by the hands 



