272 



The Animal Mind 



of combination locks probably involves the formation of 

 systems of movement, as well as the dropping off of useless 

 movements ; the process of system formation will be dis- 

 cussed in a later section. 



The building up of systems of movements is an important 

 part of the learning process in another method of studying 



the intelligence of 

 animals, namely, the 

 labyrinth or maze 

 method. In the 

 typical form of this 

 method, food is 

 placed at the end 

 of a pathway in- 

 volving a number 

 of turnings, in which 

 it is possible to make 

 errors of two sorts : 



Fig. is — The Hampton Court maze. (a) taking a longer 



instead of a shorter route, (6) entrance into cul-de-sacs. 

 The animal has to learn to run to the end of the path 

 and secure the food in the shortest possible time, or by 

 the most direct route. His progress in learning may be 

 measured either by the total time he consumes in run- 

 ning the path in each trial, or by the number of errors he 

 makes, or by the total distance he runs. The method in 

 its developed form was first used by Small (685) in experi- 

 ments on white rats, and is especially adapted to an animal 

 so active as the rat. Small used a very complicated maze, 

 a facsimile on a small scale of the one to be found in the 

 grounds of Hampton Court Palace (Fig. 15). Such mazes, 

 with high box walls, were a frequent feature of old gar- 

 dens. Much simpler mazes have been used with other 



