Cole and Long, Visual Discrimination in Raccoons. 669 



Since Raccoon No. 3 learned to select the food container twenty- 

 nine out of thirty times while No. 2 made series of thirty perfect 

 choices, it is evident that the power to discriminate between the 

 colored glasses was present. By what means the discrimination was 

 made will be discussed later. From the beginning, we noticed that 

 neither of the raccoons ever swerved toward the food-glass from a 

 distance of even a foot. Instead the animal would come to the row 

 of glasses, and then, with his nose close to them, he would go along 

 the row until the food-glass was found. There was often very prompt 

 recognition of this glass when the animal came close to it, e. g., he 

 sometimes came to the glass next to it, when, instead of looking at 

 the latter, he seemed all at once to catch sight of the food-glass and 

 would make a sudden grasp for it. In a very few cases, also, after 

 the animal had almost or quite passed the food-glass, he suddenly 

 seemed to recognize it, and turned back. 



From the very beginning of the tests with closed glasses, we at- 

 tempted, by means of control tests and various precautionary methods, 

 to determine whether the raccoons were selecting the food-glass by 

 smell or by sight. While these tests were interpolated at numerous 

 places in the series of experiments, it will be clearer to group them 

 together and discuss them later. Consequently we shall give here the 

 records of the animals' learning to discriminate various food-glasses. 

 These will appear in the order of the experiments, but the reader 

 will remember that some of the control tests interrupted the series 

 so that this order is not quite consecutive in time. 



So far the animals have learned to select OYS 1. VBT 2 was 

 next used as a food-color. Learning to select this glass involved, of 

 course, ceasing to react positively to OYS 1. Hence Tables 8 and 

 9 show the unlearning of the reaction to OYS 1 and the learning 

 to select VBT 2. 



Using the same group of papers we next placed food in the glass 

 covered with Gray 5, so that the animal was forced to select the gray 

 from among the colored papers. 



In the same series of papers. Group 5, we next taught the animals 

 to select RVT 1. Raccoon No. 2 selected this color fourteen, twenty, 

 twenty-four, and thirty times, respectively, in four series of thirty 



