86 THE HORSE OF MR. VON OSTEN 



We see that without verbal admonition the first and last 

 places are most favorable for success, the second and 

 fourth far less, and the middle least favorable. These 

 differences disappear when admonitions are introduced, 

 for all of the places then have the same number of correct 

 responses with the exception of the middle, which now has 

 even more than the others. 



One more experiment which I made will close the 

 discussion. The following colors were placed from right 

 to left : orange, blue, red, yellow, black, green. I turned 

 my back upon them, and therefore could guide the horse 

 by verbal commands only. I asked him to bring the 

 orange. Hans approached the yellow. I now called three 

 times, allowing a short interval between the calls. At the 

 first " Go ! " he passed from the yellow to the red, at the 

 second from the red to the blue, and at the third from the 

 blue to the orange, which he then proceeded to pick up 

 and bring to me. I had noted this same thing in Mr. von 

 Osten's tests, although there, there were often other 

 factors entering in. By exercising the utmost precision 

 in facing the cloths, and by using, in addition, suitable 

 oral signs, I succeeded in getting Hans to bring, succes- 

 sively, each one of the six cloths in the row, and without 

 a single error, — and all this in the presence of Mr. Schil- 

 lings who did not have the slightest notion of the secret of 

 my success. 



We need hardly say, in passing, that all that was true 

 of the tests with colored cloths, was also true of the tests 

 in which the placards were used. It was all the same to 

 the horse whichever was placed before him. 



We have thus tested all of the horse's supposed achieve- 

 ments. None of them stood the critical test. It would 

 have been gratifying to have repeated some of the experi- 



