Cole, Intelligence of Raccoons. 237 



ing was done simply to make them go m when their hunger was 

 partially satisfied. Up to that time they were eager to go in, 

 after having done so several times. These remarks apply to boxes 

 with from one to four or five fastenings. In connection with 

 experiments with Box 13, I several times whipped No. 3 to make 

 him go in, for the box was very difficult to unfasten. This was 

 done, however, only after he had gone into the box repeatedly. 



If this behavior is to be used as evidence of the presence of 

 ideas, then the reluctance of the animals to enter the boxes when 

 they were not hungry, and when the box was difficult to unfasten 

 is quite as significant as the fact of their getting in spontaneously 

 at first. 



No. 2 started back into Box i on the eleventh trial and went 

 back into the box on the thirty-ninth, fifty-sixth, sixty-seventh, 

 sixty-ninth and seventieth trials. The next afternoon he went into 

 the box and came out to be fed before I could close the door. I 

 fed him a little, and he went back. After this the usual thing 

 was for him to go into the box when hungry. Until after the seven- 

 tieth trial nothing was done to encourage No. 2 to go back. My 

 object was to see whether the animal would turn and go in instantly 

 entirely of his own accord. I did not even wait for him to go in; 

 unless he returned promptly to the box, he was lifted into it. 



No. I went into the box first on the fifty-seventh trial. After 

 that he was held at the door six times and went in. Thereafter he 

 went in regularly. 



These results are radically different from those obtained by 

 Thorndike in his experiments with cats. Since four raccoons 

 exhibited this reaction, it is safe to conclude that any raccoon 

 which has been lifted into a box and allowed to come out and be 

 fed will sooner or later go in of his own accord, and further that 

 he will go in before the one-hundredth trial and probably before the 

 seventy-fifth trial, as my four animals did. The behavior ot these 

 animals forces one to believe that it dawns on the animal that he 

 can hurry the matter of getting food by rushing back into the box 

 and coming out again. The association here involved not only 

 what the animal had done but also something zvhich had been done 

 to It. It may very well be doubted, however, whether lifting the 

 animal about taught it anything. I should say rather that it had 

 an image of the interior of the box as the starting point of the.food- 

 getting process and an idea of going back to recommence the pro- 



