340 "Jounial of Comparative Meurology and Psychology. 



tests. The combination locks demanded that their elements be operated in a fixed 

 order. 



We are told that in these experiments each animal at first attacked the box with 

 indiscriminate clawing, but finally settled down to a single habitual method of oper- 

 ating the latch or latches. The formation of this habit was due to "the omission 

 of unnecessary movements and the combination of those required," exactly as 

 described by Thorndike in the case of cats. "The steps by which perfection is 

 reached are very short and blinJlytzken"^ (p. 468). Yet despite this gradualness 

 and blindness of the learning process Mr. Davis's adult raccoons showed a "nearly 

 equal facility" with monkeys in learning to undo fastenings (p. 487), and their 

 curve of learning follows closely the type of those for the higher animals and for 

 man (p. 477). 



Mr. Davis states, "Experience with former fastenings holds over in the case of 

 new ones leading the animal, at least in certain cases, to begin his attack at the place 

 on the surface of the food-box where he has been accustomed to work. (This has 

 been found by Thorndike in the case of cats and denied by Cole in the case of 

 raccoons). " This very important conclusion is based, so far as can be judged from 

 a very obscure statement, on only eight reactions of a single animal. During four 

 of these trials the animal stood on his head and clawed where the latch had been. 

 Presumably the vividness of this experience and Cole's remark concerning an 

 easily discriminated fastening have led Mr. Davis to say that such performances 

 are denied in Cole's paper, yet on p. 218 of that paper it is distinctly stated that 

 one of Cole's raccoons clawed twice, another four times at the tide of the door luhere 

 a latch had been in the preceding test. Nevertheless Cole's results are characterized 

 as "exceptional." Are we to infer that his animals should have clawed eight 

 times instead of six, or that they ought to have stood on their heads while doing so .? 

 Notwithstanding the tremendous weight given by Mr. Davis to this performance of 

 a single individual, we are told that the raccoons seemed to reach a sort of "gener- 

 alized manner of procedure" which enabled them to deal more promptly with any 

 new fastening. This half-subjective, half-objective term, "generalized procedure" 

 is vague in the extreme. Does it mean, as pointed out by Cole (p. 218) that "in 

 future new boxes the animals seemed to pick out the new latch and work directly 

 at that as if experience led them to attack movable objects within the box, or else 

 objects which gave a click or other sound when operated.?" Cole continues: 

 "These facts, with others to be mentioned, indicate, I think, that the raccoon's 

 learning to operate a latch includes something more than a mere mechanical coup- 

 ling up of a certain instinctive act with a given situation." Kinnamant (p. 122) 

 says more boldly, "It looks very much like the possession of a general notion fairly 

 well represented by projecting-thing-has-something-to-do-with-it, and so they 

 attacked the projecting thing and not something else." If the conclusion as to 

 "generalized procedure" does mean this, it seems to contradict point blank the 

 conclusion based on the special procedure of the single animal which clawed eight 

 times at the side of the door where a bolt had been in the preceding test. Probably 

 Thorndike would be first to protest against confirmation by the exceptional 

 behavior, super- or sub-normal of a single animal, when this behavior was con- 

 tradicted by other records. 



' Italics are the re\'iewer's. 



