10 RUTLEDGE T. WILTS ANK 



the first section was nearly as great. The distribution of 

 errors in the various sections of the E maze, and the per- 

 centages of savings are given in table 3. 



TABLE 3 



The Average Number of Errors per Rat Made by Groups 5 and 4 in the 

 Sections of Maze E, and the Percentages of Savings 



Sec. 1 Sec. 2 Sec. 3 Sec. 4 



Group 5 (Control) 11.1 11.7 8.7 .4 



Group 4 (Trial) 33 1.7 .11 .11 



Savings by Grout) 4 97 85 99 72 



The situation in maze E differs from the situation in B, 

 in that the identical part is not encountered in the former 

 until the animal has run through two sections which differ 

 from the first two of the maze which he has already learned; 

 so that in the situation presented in the B maze the ques- 

 tion was not only as to whether the animal would retain 

 the habit acquired in the first section of the maze in which 

 it was first run, but also as to whether there would be 

 any disconcerting effect from meeting the strange second 

 section after travelling the familiar first one; while in the 

 situation presented in the E maze the transition was from 

 a pathway unfamiliar at the beginning and through half 

 of its whole length to a section which had been learned 

 before. Although the saving in the third section was 99 

 per cent, this was but little more than the saving in the 

 first section. There would seem to be no ground for the 

 assertion that, if the presence of the identical part in the 

 two mazes results in the more expeditious learning of the 

 second maze, this is due to the saving of errors in the 

 identical part. 



It might be contended that the comparison ought to 

 be made between the average number of errors and per- 

 centage of saving in the identical part and the average 

 errors and savings of the other three sections taken to- 

 gether, instead of being considered severally as above. 

 When this method is followed, it is found that the aver- 

 age number of errors per rat made in the dissimilar sections 

 of maze B was 1.8 as compared with the average of 1.7 

 in the identical part, and that the' average saving of the 



