164 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



plotted do not, of course, represent those followed in successive 

 trials. 



As I expected, it never learnt to traverse the labyrinth per- 

 fectly, and up to the end of the 50th and last trial the Newt had 

 formed a useless habit of wandering up and down a before taking 

 the turn into b. A great deal of energy and time was wasted in 

 trying to get out by climbing up the sides of the trough. The 

 Newts always showed an astonishing persistence in this ; its 

 relation to the forming of correct habits I shall mention later on. 

 What I wish particularly to emphasize is that throughout the 

 whole of my work I observed a strong tendency in the Newts to 

 form useless habits, from which no pleasurable results accrued. 

 In some instances, which I shall describe, the habits formed 

 were most elaborately wrong. In trials 10 to 19 the Newt made 

 a habit, on first walking up a, of entering the mouth of b for a 

 couple of inches, and then withdrawing again into a, and so on 

 to the end of it, where, after some delay, it used to turn to the 

 left down to the entrance barrier and up to the mouth of b again. 

 On entering it the second time it went on, and finally out at the 

 exit. Then, again, in trials 42 to 48, the Newt, when it had 

 reached a certain distance up c, always stopped and placed its 

 nose into the right angle formed by the floor and side of the 

 trough. But there was no gap in the join and no inequality which 

 could have produced a stereoscopic reflex. 



All my results show the ability in the Newt to form rapidly 

 simple habits of turning right and left ; thus, at the end of 

 fifteen trials this first Newt always turned to the left in b, and 

 from trials 20 to 38 it escaped by the left aperture of c with only 

 one exception. Occasionally it would walk up c on the right 

 side, but on reaching a point x (Fig. 1) it would walk right 

 across to the left, although it could have got out equally well by 

 turning right. Once it turned across from right to left too soon, 

 so that it struck into the left side of trough c instead of at 

 the exit. After a pause the turn to the left was accentuated, so 

 that it almost faced back toward b. Finally, with hesitation, it 

 went forwards and out as usual on the left. The animal pro- 

 bably did not cross from right to left simply because it saw the 

 opening on the other side — that would mean an intelligence far 

 too quick for the sluggish Newt — but the instant when to turn 



