328 ASA A. SCHAEFFER 



the racial development of instincts. If " deep-rooted " is 

 supposed to mean about the same as essential, discussion is 

 facilitated, for it is assumed by biologists generalh' that all 

 or nearly all instincts have life and death value either in ontogeny 

 or in phylogeny, and so all or nearly all, are supposed to be 

 essential. To illustrate: the "homing" or "safety" instinct 

 is as essential to the average frog as is the feeding instinct. 

 The frog, with little or no harm, can go for long periods (weeks 

 and months together) without exercising the feeding instinct; 

 but if the average frog should suspend the homing or safety 

 instinct for the same length of time, it is doubtful whether it 

 would escape its numerous enemies: hawks, owls, snakes, etc. 

 Since both these essential instincts have been tested from the 

 viewpoint of the rapidity of habit fomiation, and since it has 

 been found that the feeding instinct is easily modifiable and 

 permits of rapid habit formation, whereas the homing instinct per- 

 mits of only very slow habit formation, we must conclude that the 

 chances are strong that Washburn and Bentley's " prophecy " 

 will, at least in its present form, remain unfulfilled. 



POSITION OF THE FROG IN THE SCALE OF ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE 



A majority, if not all of the students of animal behavior hold 

 that one of the most important results to be obtained from a 

 study of the behavior of animals is their arrangement in a sys- 

 tem based upon their intelligence, such as has been done for 

 animals with regard to their anatomical structure. Thus, in 

 speaking of his experiments on the green frog {Rana clamata), 

 Yerkes writes: "Other animals which were used gave results 

 so similar to those for frog No. 2 that I feel justified in pre- 

 senting the latter as representative of the rapidit}' with which 

 the green frog profits by experience." (11, p. 588.) (The No. 2 

 referred to required between 60 and no trials to learn a simple 

 labyrinth.) Again, " This very clearly shows the slowness of 

 adaptation in the frog, in contrast with the rapidity of habit 

 formation in the cat or chick." (11, p. 583.) 



We have already noted what is the probable cause of the 

 very rapid formation of habit in my experiments as compared 

 with the slow formation of habit in Yerkes' experiments. We 

 noted also that the feeding instinct in frogs is more character- 

 istic and more highly specialized than the homing or safety 



