14 L. W. SACKETT 



eccentricities of the dancing mouse, the sociability of the cat 

 and dog, or the intellectual cast of the monkeys and higher 

 primates. In later experience, however, considerable effort has 

 been necessary to keep attachment to the animals from influ- 

 encing the evaluation of results. Nevertheless, all emotional 

 bias has been avoided even to the extent of forcing inteipreta- 

 tions into lower categories than the necessity of the case demanded 

 in an effort to give the facts a maximum scientific value. 



Such are the chief characteristics of the animal here presented 

 for a subject for experimental study of its learning process. 

 Porcupines have been charged with unbounded stupidity by 

 naturalists and pronounced ugly and repulsive by most who 

 know them. Save for a few references which depict it as the 

 victim of persecuted innocence and stupidity, the porcupine has 

 seldom figured in the aboriginal folk-stories which eulogize 

 sublety, cunning, sagacity, — in general, intelligence of animals. 

 It probably has a very short infancy, is comparatively play less, 

 and has strong solitary tendencies. It is very easily tamed, and 

 is devoid of any great amoimt of curiosity which Davis (14) 

 considers an "essential symptom" of intelligence and without 

 which he asserts "animal intelligence is out of the question." 

 Not a single observation in this study can be interpreted as due 

 to "spontaneous attention and the instinct to investigate." 

 How will this animal react to the ordinary methods of the 

 laboratory for testing intelligence? The greatest assets of 

 the experimenter are the porcupine's appetite and the per- 

 sistency while on duty. Little difiiculty is experienced in the 

 way of diminished effort or activity as the animals approach 

 satiety during the feeding. They usually stop suddenly and 

 return to their corner after having eaten the last morsel almost 

 as greedily as they did the first. Barring the case of No. 7, 

 which for a time presented the problems of the "backward 

 child," all of the animals used in this study have been most 

 persistent workers. There has been no tedious waiting for the 

 animal to get ready to attack the problem provided its solution 

 was between him and the food. Although they are somewhat 

 slow, they seldom pause in their activity, almost never give up 

 a task, and work with an independence of effort which leads one 

 to suspect that their survival has depended upon the individual 

 far more than upon the group. 



