ll'S JOHN B. WATSON 



vision being responsible even for the slight responses he ob- 

 tained. In the opening sentences of the present paper he says 

 that the fish can feel sounds through the skin, lateral line organs 

 and through the ears proper. One of the strong criticisms 

 urged against all of Parker's auditory work by certain German 

 reviewers is that he does not exclude the possibility of response 

 through vision (i.e., visual response to actual wave motions 

 produced by the sounding body). In the present paper, al- 

 though he cites the work of Hunter (1782) on the responses of 

 fishes to the noise produced by the discharge of fowling pieces, 

 he does not consider the work of Bernoulli (Zur Frage des Hor- 

 vermogens der Fische, Arch. f. d. ges. Physiol., 134 633-644. 

 See review of 1910 literature in this journal, Vol. 1, p. 436), 

 who made similar experiments and arrived at similar conclu- 

 sions. 



Mammals. Shepherd (24) finds that the raccoon learns to 

 respond to its own name and to other articulate sounds. Con- 

 fusion words were not reacted to. Variations in the pitch of 

 the voice and in the timbre of the voice did not cause failure to 

 discriminate. This work seems to the reviewer merely indica- 

 tive ; in no sense can we say on the basis of such tests that 

 Shepherd's conclusion is justified. The simplest and most fun- 

 damental precaution was neglected, — that of being out of sight 

 of the animal during the experiments. 



OLFACTION 



Fish. Parker (19) tested the ability of Fundulus to discrim- 

 inate between packets of cotton cloth containing dogfish meat 

 and others not containing food. The packets without meat 

 were occasionally approached and seized, but soon dropped. 

 The killifish, in contrast with the catfish, used its eyes as well 

 as its chemical senses in seeking food. 



The olfactory nerves were then cut in several animals. Twenty- 

 four hours after the operation the fish were fully active and 

 took food. When tested with the food packets they nibbled at 

 both in a way that made it impossible for the uninformed ob- 

 server to distinguish one packet from the other. Since the 

 operation of cutting the olfactory nerves was somewhat severe, 

 Parker tested the effect of closing the anterior olfactory aper- 

 tures by stitches of fine silk. Again discrimination between the 



