ITS M. V. WASHBURN AND KIHVINA ABBOTT 



between the figures for red and grey and those for red and black 

 cannot be due simply to the absence of grey in the red-black 

 experiments. In Series 19, Dark Nose was required to learn 

 to choose red rather than Stoelting black paper She had 

 previously been trained to choose grey number 7 rather than 

 Stoelting black. This training, which had been continued for 

 387 experiments, had resulted in an average of 75 per cent of 

 right choices in the last 180 tests On the theory that the 

 rabbits were learning to avoid the wrong door in itself, rather 

 than to choose the darker or lighter of the two impressions 

 presented, this black-grey training should have brought about 

 a certain tendency to avoid the black, and inasmuch as, in the 

 next series, with red and black, the red door opened, the rabbit 

 ought to have continued to make a high record of correct choices, 

 since all that was necessary was to continue to avoid the black. 

 But we find that her total percentage of correct choices in this 

 black-red series, comprising 173 experiments, was only 48. It 

 is difficult to explain this failure to continue the process of learn- 

 ing to avoid black, except on the supposition that the rabbit 

 found it practically impossible to distinguish red from black. 

 The details of her behavior for the first three days of this black- 

 red test are interesting In the preceding series she had been 

 going for the most part without hesitation to grey, though 

 occasionally making a wrong choice Our records read as follows 

 for the first day of the final red-black series. 



" 1. Red left. Put down before the box, rabbit runs away. 

 Start over again. She goes near red, looks at it, goes around to 

 left end of box and sits down. Start again. She noses red and 

 black alternately Gets food from red. 



"2. Red right. Looks intently, goes to black [which she 

 should have been learning to avoid], barely touches it, cautiously 

 pushes red. 



"3. Red left. Goes to middle, pushes red, shaking ears. 



" 4. Reel right. Looks at box, dashes off to left, noses black, 

 then red. 



"5. Two trials, but rabbit runs away each time." 



The next day's work led off with six successive choices of the 

 red. Two choices of the black follow, and then two more of the 

 red. It looked as though there might have been here some 

 recognition either of the red as the door to be chosen, or of the 



