18 WALTER S. HUNTER 



box containing an apple. The raccoons were accustomed to 

 reaching through a hole in the top of the box in order to pro- 

 cure the fruit. When a block with a steeple in it was placed 

 in the hole, one raccoon immediately clawed out the block and 

 ate the apple. " She seemed to work as if actuated by a thought 

 of the apple in the box. It was not done by random clawing, 

 nor could she smell or otherwise perceive the piece of the apple 

 in the box."" We are not informed why the animal could not 

 smell the apple. The fact that the fruit odor was in the room 

 will not suffice. But even assuming this to have been con- 

 trolled, we need not attribute an image of the apple to the 

 animal. Habit got the raccoon to the hole and started her paw, 

 and the contact (?) of the staple initiated the claw reflex. This 

 plus the pleasurable results associated with the box are suffi- 

 cient to explain the activity. In a slightly different experi- 

 ment, the animals crawled through a hole in the top of the 

 box in order to procure the apple. I now quote Cole: "The 

 box had no bottom and instead of resting directly on the 

 floor it rested on a row of bricks. Removing one of these made 

 an opening under the lower edge of the box through which the 

 raccoon might crawl. The opening in the top was now closed 

 and nailed fast. No. i was freed, went to the top of the box 

 and tried to claw out the block. He then walked about the 

 room, then tried the block again. He then went to the opening 

 made by removing the brick, stopped a moment, then crawled 

 in."'' To argue that this means image of apple is certainly 

 naive, at least. Could the raccoon not sense the apple when 

 its nose was within a foot (see description of box i8, op. cit., 

 p. 215) of it? Again where the animal climbed up and over a 

 roll of poultry wire in order to descend into the box, the possi- 

 bility of the presence of imagery is only suggested, not proved. 

 The opening into the box, as w^ell as the odor of the food, was 

 there impelling the raccoon to approach. What more natural, 

 then, than that the animals should climb the wire and thus 

 reach the food. Such behavior is what would be expected of 

 raccoons that lived in a wire cage. The case of raccoon No. 4 

 is somewhat different. With the box which possessed two 

 openings, he went directly into the lower of the two at the 



" Op. cit., pp. 254-5. 

 '« Op. cit., p. 255. 



