122 FLETCHER, COWAN AND ARLITT 



correct path and so out. This sort of procedure naturally made 

 the time record of the abnormal chick much longer than that 

 of the normal chick. But there are many modifying points 

 which must be considered when discussing this difference in 

 the learning process involved in learning mazes. In the first 

 place this time difference was not one which persisted through- 

 out the learning process. The results will show that it is con- 

 fined mainly to the first third of the number of trials used. 

 After this point the time records of the abnormal chicks do not 

 vary from those of the normal. On this account we are very 

 doubtful whether this can be called a genuine difference in 

 the learning process of normal and abnormal chicks. Another 

 consideration is the fact that this lack of reaction while preva- 

 lent among the abnormals was not invariable among them and 

 was occasionally found among the normals. A glance at the 

 tables will show that there were chicks among the alcohols, 

 among the water and among the hole chicks whose records 

 were as good or better than the average of the normal chicks. 

 And there were individuals among the normals who showed 

 the same lack of interest during the first trials in the maze that 

 the abnormal chicks showed. And the final consideration is 

 that the fact that a chick, either normal or abnormal, exhibited 

 this sluggish type of behavior in a maze on one day did not 

 necessarily mean that it would exhibit this same type of beha- 

 vior in a different maze on another day. Again a glance at the 

 individual records will confirm this. 



The experiments with the mazes seemed to indicate, then, 

 that tampering with an egg in the ways we used would cause 

 the chicken subsequently developing from it to be subject to 

 fits of sluggishness and inactivity which might temporarily 

 impede its progress in acquiring a new co-ordination. They did 

 not in any way demonstrate the inability of such a chick to 

 acquire new co-ordinations, nor did they even demonstrate that 

 this sluggishness is an inevitable result of the tampering, or a 

 constant characteristic of the chick in which it appears or a 

 characteristic which does not sometimes appear in normal chicks. 

 The ordinary chicken raiser who remarks that a certain chicken 

 ' looks droopy and may be sick " is well acquainted with the 

 type of behavior or lack of behavior we have been trying to 

 describe. 



The following pages present the maze results in detail: 



