NOTE ON THE BEHAVIOR OF THE WHITE RAT 139 



the living cage, but on a separate table. Fig. i indicates the 

 essential relations of the boxes to one another. T is the table 

 upon which are placed the living cage, L, and a small accessory 

 box, C. This latter is of wire and is 12 x 7 x 9 inches with an 

 opening in the top 5x5 inches. F is a chair upon which food 

 is placed during the day's experiments. T' is the table upon 

 which the problem box, P, is placed. For 204 days, once each 

 day, the rats were taken from L one by one and each given 

 five trials in the problem box. The reward of each of the five 

 trials was a bit of food given on the table T' . As the day's 

 work with each rat was finished, the animal was picked up, by 

 placing the hand about the body, and dropped into C through 

 the hole in the top. When all the rats had been placed in C, 

 a small quantity of food was put in the living cage, and the 

 animals were picked up, lifted through the door of this cage 

 and dropped within. 



On the 204th day after the experiments were begun, the 

 door of the living cage was accidentally left open, permitting 

 the animals to come out upon the table. They ran about upon 

 this, frequently pausing and sniffing the air in the direction of 

 the food at F and of the experimenter who stood between the 

 two tables. Within two or three minutes all the rats (five in 

 number) had come to the box C. It was smelled of cursorily 

 and passed by. But two of the rats climbed upon the box and 

 dropped down inside through the hole in the top, — this despite 

 the fact that they had never been fed in the box and that the 

 rat odor alone could be there. This behavior they repeated on 

 each of the next eight days and at frequent intervals thereafter 

 until the close of the tests. The reason why the other rats did 

 not eventually learn the reaction and why the two who had 

 learned it tended to discontinue the reaction is undoubtedly to 

 be found in the fact that the box C was not used in the experi- 

 ments after the 204th day. 



The complete method of handling the rats, when stated in 

 terms of the symbols used in Fig. 1, is as follows: L-P-Food- 

 C-L-Food. There are thus two complete cycles each culminat- 

 ing in the acquisition of food. When the rats were prevented 

 from going through the first cycle, they initiated the second 

 by climbing into C. This is not a case of abbreviated reaction 

 similar to one noted by Cole. 6 There the raccoons shortened 



*Op. cit., p. 239. 



