Formation of Habits 159 



minnows, but they learned to avoid this. Even when 

 a minnow was placed in their own compartment the 

 habit of inhibition continued. Yet when worms were 

 dangled in the other compartment the perch bumped 

 their heads as before. For their habit of inhibition 

 was formed in regard to minnows, not in regard to 

 worms. 



More worthy of the name of habits, however, are 

 those which involve a chain of many links. In a few 

 days an elephant in a zoo learned to receive a penny 

 from a visitor's hand, open the lid of a cash-box on a 

 shelf, deposit the coin, shut the box, and ring a bell. 

 In another well-known case it took a different ele- 

 phant longer to learn to accept a penny (rejecting 

 halfpennies), put it into the slot of an automatic 

 machine, and receive delivery of a biscuit, which was 

 its reward. As there was a directly associated pleasure 

 in this habit it should have taken the elephant a 

 shorter time to learn it, but elephants vary in educa- 

 bility, and there was a snag in the possibility of the 

 coin being a halfpenny. It is unnecessary, however, 

 to suppose that the elephant understood that only 

 pennies would work the automatic biscuit machine. 

 But among the best examples of habits with diverse 

 acts in a chain are those afforded by maze experi- 

 ments. It is well known that monkeys, white rats, 

 squirrels, and the sparrow can master a maze of the 

 Hampton Court pattern, which sometimes puzzles 

 human beings. After a sufficient number of lessons 

 the animals referred to get quickly into the center of 

 the maze and out again without making any mistakes. 



