ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 567 



Other principal foods are voles, mice, insects, and earthworms. Vege- 

 table foods, except nuts, are not eaten. The burrows of Blarina are 

 similar to those of Mkrotus pmnsylvanica, but are of greater depth, and 

 the openings are farther apart. The smell, hearing, and tactile sense of 

 Blarina are acute ; its sight serves merely to distinguish light from 

 shadow. Experiments in feeding a captive Blarina show r that its 

 economic importance may be considerable, since, unlike the other 

 common shrew, Sorex personatus, it is almost exclusively carnivorous. 



Imitative Tendency of Rats and of Cats.* — C. S. Berry finds that 

 when " two rats were put into the box together, one rat being trained to 

 get out of the box, and the other untrained, at first they were indifferent 

 to each other's presence, but as the untrained rat observed that the 

 other was able to get out, while he was not, a gradual change took place. 

 The untrained rat began to watch the other's movements closely ; he 

 followed him all about the cage, standing up on his hind legs beside 

 him at the string, and pulling it after he had pulled it. He also 

 saw that when he was put back the immediate vicinity of the loop was 

 the point of greatest interest for him, and that he tried to get out by 

 working at the spot where he had seen the trained rat try." In cats 

 Berry found similar and more marked cases of " imitation." It seems 

 like imitation in the making, but the animal that does not know learns 

 by paying attention to its comrade, and in an indefinite way doing the 

 same sort of thing itself. 



Intelligence of Raccoons. f — L. W. Cole has followed Thorndike's 

 methods, and improved on them, in studying the behaviour of raccoons. 

 The experiments consisted largely in allowing the animals to learn to 

 open boxes closed by fastenings of various degrees of complexity. The 

 learning was largely by trial and error, but it did not seem to be confined 

 to this. Sometimes a raccoon seemed to " catch the idea," sometimes 

 it learned by being " put through " an act, sometimes it seemed to learn 

 by watching the experimenter. Some ingenious experiments suggest 

 that some animals hold mental images. They fought against being put 

 into boxes witli complex fastenings, from which they had some time 

 before had difficulty in escaping, though they willingly went into similar 

 boxes whose fastenings they had found simple. To raise a green signal 

 meant food, a red one meant nothing. They learned to raise these 

 signals by clawing at the standards, but they could not see beforehand 

 which sign would come up by clawing at a certain standard. When the 

 red one came up they clawed it down again, then clawed up the green 

 one, and prepared to receive food. 



Unusual Type of Reaction in Dog.J — Gr. van T. Hamilton has 

 studied the behaviour of a dog which learned that in order to escape 

 from a pen and get food he must press, out of a number of levers, the 

 one that bore the same sign as was found on a general signboard else- 

 where in the pen. He inspected the signboard, passed in review the 



* Journ. Comp. Neurol. Psychol., xvi., pp. 333-61 ; xviii. (1908) pp. 1-25. See 

 also Amer. Nat., xlii. (190S) pp. 212-13. 



t Op. cit. xvii. (1907) pp. 211-61. See also Amer. Nat., xlii. (190Si pp. 213-14. 

 % Tom. cit., pp. 329-41. See also Amer. Nat., xlii. (190S) pp. 215-16. 



