Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, August 1899: Volume LVVarious
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, August 1899: Volume LV
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
after seeing and feeling his paw pull a loop down a hundred times with
such good results, have known enough to do it himself. None of my
animals did know enough. Those who did not in ten or twelve trials hit
upon an act by accident could never be taught that act by being put
through it. And, as in the case of imitation, acts of such a sort as
would be surely learned by virtue of accidental success were not
learned a whit sooner or more easily when I thus showed them to the
animal.
An interesting supplement to these facts is found in the following
answers to some questions which I sent to the trainer of one of the
most remarkable trick-performing horses now exhibited on the stage.
The counting tricks done by this horse had been quoted to me by a
friend as impossible of explanation unless the horse could be educated
by being put through the right number of movements in connection with
the different signals.
_Question 1._--If you wished to teach a horse to tap seven times with
his hoof when you asked him "How many days are there in a week?" would
you teach him by taking his leg and making him go through the motions?
_Answer._--"No!"
_Question 2._--Do you think you _could_ teach him that way, even if
naturally you would take some other way?
_Answer._--"I do not think I could."
_Question 3._--How would you teach him?
_Answer._--"You put figure 2 on the blackboard and _touch him, on the
leg_ twice with a cane, and so on."
The counting tricks of trained horses seem to us marvelous because we
are not acquainted with the simple but important fact that a horse
instinctively raises his hoof when one pricks or taps his leg in a
certain place. Just as once given, the cat's instinct to claw,
squeeze, etc., you can readily get a cat to open doors by working
latches or turning buttons, so, once given this simple reflex of
raising the hoof, you can, by ingenuity and patience, get a horse to
do almost any number of counting tricks.
Probably any one who still feels confident that animals reason will
not be shaken by any further evidence. Still, it will pay any one who
cares to make scientific his notions about animal consciousness to
notice the results of two sets of experiments not yet mentioned. The
first set was concerned with the way animals learn to perform a
compound act. Boxes were arranged so that two or three different
things had to be done before the door would fall open. For instance,
in one case the cat or dog had to step on a platform, reach up between
the bars over the top of the box and claw down a string running across
them, and finally push its paw out beside the door to claw down a bar
which held it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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