LABYRINTH HABITS OF THE PIGEON 



2S3 



in this connection that throughout the entire course of these 

 experiments the birds remained very alert and sensitive to 

 unusual stimuli. Those affecting the senses of vision and hear- 

 ing were particularly effective. 



TABLE I 

 Learning Records for Labyrinth A 



Rouse, working with a maze identical with labyrinth A, save 

 that the partitions were of wire, gave preliminary tests in the 

 same manner as did the present writer. However, during these 

 and the regular experiments but one trial a day was given, as 

 opposed to the three in the present experiments; and the times 

 alone were recorded. Rouse's results vary considerably from 

 those presented in this paper. Although this may be accounted 

 for by differences in method and apparatus, the fact is important 

 in that the present results were obtained with apparatus similar 

 to that used in other work on animal behavior and thus afford 

 a more satisfactory basis upon which to ground a comparative 

 estimate of the pigeon's learning ability. An inspection of 

 Rouse's table for this maze ' shows that the average time curve 

 for six birds begins very much higher, descends more slowly, 

 and never reaches as low a minimum as the curve that might be 

 drawn from the data in table I of this paper. It is thus apparent 

 that vision from alley to alley must have served to lengthen 

 the time in comparison with the results obtained by the present 

 writer. Indeed, Rouse calls attention to the attempts of his 

 pigeons to butt through the partitions in the first part of the 

 maze and later to turn before the end of a given alley was reached. 



'Op. cit., p. 589. '• ^ ■ 



