Cole, Intelligence of Raccoons. 225 



coons turned a button once or twice with the nose in early trials 

 then settled down to working it with the paw. In acts so diffi- 

 cult to learn that the animal had to be put through them, there 

 was no change from the act put through to one accidentally hit 

 upon. 



The raccoons were observed to operate fastenings with either 

 the right or left paw or with both at once. We may say in general 

 that the first successful act was not always stamped in because 

 it was not always the most convenient. Sooner or later the more 

 convenient was substituted for the more awkward performance, 

 and the change was sometimes abrupt. We cannot say, of these 

 animals, therefore, that a given situation has power fatally to 

 evoke the formerly successful act. No. 2's behavior at least was 

 entirely unpredictable. Wherever else in psychology we find the 

 employment of two different means to the same end we account 

 for it by means of an image or notion. But we may speak of this 

 later. 



MEMORY FOR FASTENINGS. 



As I built up combinations of fastenings from those which the 

 raccoons had already learned, it was not possible to give memory 

 trials for single fastenings with a time interval sufficiently long to 

 find the limit of their power to remember such acts. Intervals of 

 three or four days or of two weeks showed no appreciable for- 

 getting. After completing work with Box 13, however, I allowed 

 an mterval of one hundred and forty-seven days to elapse. This 

 box had seven fastenings and was very difficult for the raccoons 

 to master. At the end of this period No. ^, No. 2 and No. i were 

 again tried in this box. Only the first^succeeded in working all 

 the fastenings and releasmg hmiself. He undid the seven fasten- 

 ings and came out of the box in 34, 28, 131, and 182 seconds, suc- 

 cessively. The other two worked nearly but not quite all the 

 fastenings, the horizontal hook being most frequently missed. 

 This period, therefore, may be regarded as very near the limit of 

 the raccoon's memory for the most complex motor associations 

 he is able to form. It seems likely that No. 3's superior memory 

 for this box was due to the extreme difficulty he encountered in 

 mastering it. No. 2 had had more trials in Box 13 than No. 3 and 

 he is fully as intelligent an animal, yet No. 3, whose difficulties 

 were very great at first, reached the extremely low minimum time 



