CANADA PORCUPINE 27 



and hundreds of times it had reached into the food-boxes in 

 the course of other experiments. In this 184-day memory test, 

 the animal was induced to mount the same box previously 

 used and food in small pieces was placed before it as in the 

 original experiment, although a different food was then being 

 employed. The porcupine at once seized the food with its 

 hands and at no time attempted to grasp with the mouth first. 

 On the following day the same cup which had been used before 

 was placed before the animal. It at once grasped the handle 

 of the cup with its right hand, lifted it from the box and took 

 out a piece of food with the left hand. The performance was 

 even better than at the time of the original practice. The animal 

 remembered without any loss of association, or dexterity in 

 performing — even with impro^'ed skill. This was far more than 

 was expected as the special effort of the experiment was to train 

 the animal contrary to its natural habits. When a light alum- 

 inum cup was substituted for the porcelain cup previously used 

 it was held even better than in the original learning. In fact, 

 the animal showed as much skill in handling the food-cup and 

 taking food from it as one could expect. The c^uestion whether 

 such training is sufficiently unique to be retained better is an 

 interesting psychological problem. Or, had the animal really 

 been trained along the line of its instinctive aptitudes? As 

 to the latter it must be repeated that in all the observations 

 made in connection with this study no untrained animal has 

 been found performing any act closely analogous to these last 

 variations of the hand reactions. If.Yerkes (49) is right, how- 

 ever, in emphasizing the difficulty in training an animal con- 

 trary to its instinctive behavior, one would have expected much 

 more difficulty in inducing porcupines to accommodate them- 

 selves to this modification not closely correlated with their 

 natural habits, as well as poorer memory of the association and 

 a rapid loss of skill in the performance of the act. 



In regard to the use of the forefoot as a hand it may be said 

 that the porcupine shows less dexterity than the monkeys and 

 possibly less also than the raccoons though no adequate tests 

 of monkeys and raccoons have been made. 



Reactions to Puzzle-box Situations. — A few experiments with 

 puzzle-boxes with various devices were carried through. The 

 main purpose was to compare the porcupines with other animals 



