94 HAROLD C. BINGHAM 



corner of the discrimination chamber. From this point it 

 advanced to a position close to the — compartment, and in 

 turning, stepped upon the entrance edge of the electric wires, 

 but stepped off immediately and went directly to the + com- 

 partment which was promptly chosen. An error recorded for 

 test 6, series 14, is likewise questionable. 



The records of No. 27 in series 12-14 were made in a single 

 day (Saturday). The chick was allowed to rest over Sunday. 

 On Monday, series 15-17 were completed. In connection 

 with the 15th series it was noted that "the characteristic 

 behavior of Saturday persisted over Sunday." In series 16 

 the chick seemed to become careless prior to the last three 

 tests, in which the choices were carefully and correctly made. 

 Preceding shocks for wrong choices, it appeared, had encouraged 

 greater care which, it was hoped, would continue throughout 

 series 17. During the first five tests carefulness did continue 

 and the responses were correct except in test 1. But during 

 the last half of the series, four wrong choices occurred. 



In series 17, the chick began for the first time to make the 

 feeding-hovering twitter during the choosing period prior to 

 its entrance into the electric compartment. 



5. Summary 



Natively, No. 27 was found to differ from chicks 24 and 25 

 in manifesting a persistent side preference and in responding 

 more slowly. Throughout the first three training series, No. 

 27 maintains an average time for -f choices practically equal 

 to that of the other chicks. In series 2 and 3, the — choices 

 of No. 27 are notably low and the average time involved when 

 these errors occur is much higher than that for the other chicks. 

 On the whole, it seems that in No. 27 there was a relatively 

 high persistence combined with a relatively low variability. 

 These characteristics seemed to remain at a fairly constant 

 level throughout the period of experimentation. Alternation 

 between moderate persistence and high variability was charac- 

 teristic of chicks 24 and 25. The former type of behavior 

 probably predominated in No. 24, the latter in No. 25. Under 

 the conditions of this experiment, No. 27 was the most teachable 

 subject, although in certain phases of the tasks presented it 

 it did not always excel. 



