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This Skirrl succeeded in doing very skillfully, for he would sit down on the floor of the cage, grip with both feet the handle of the saw, with the teeth directed upward, then holding either end in his hands, he would repeatedly rub a stick over the teeth. In this way, of course, he could make the saw cut fairly well.
The behavior seems to the writer a most important bit of evidence of imagery in the monkey. Finally, on August 9, after ten hundred and seventy trials, Skirrl succeeded in choosing correctly in the ten trials of a series, and he was therefore considered to have solved the problem of the second door from the right end of the group.
When observations had to be discontinued, Sobke was well along with the last, or fourth problem; Skirrl was at work at the third problem; and Julius had failed to solve the second problem. For each of the problems, a series of ten different settings of the doors was determined upon in advance.
Only by using at least two of these boxes was it possible for the animal to reach the carrot. Immediately on admission to the cage, Skirrl began to gnaw at the boxes, trying with all his might to tear them to pieces.
We must therefore conclude that Skirrl is right-handed in connection with certain movements and left-handed in others. The monkey named Gertie in the reaching experiment consistently used her left hand, never once using the right.
The results of this experiment indicate the lack in the monkey of any tendency or ability, apart from training, to use objects as means of obtaining food. Ways of using objects as tools which apparently are perfectly natural to the anthropoid apes and to man are rarely employed by the lower primates. Hammer and Nail Test One day I happened to observe Skirrl playing with a staple in his cage.
When admitted to the cage Skirrl went almost directly to the ends of the box, took the pieces of carrot which were in sight, but apparently failed to perceive the bait in the middle of the box. For a while he played with the locks on the box, shoved it about, and amused himself with it, showing no interest in obtaining the food. Later he looked through the box and saw the banana.
On August 24 this experiment was repeated with an important modification of the apparatus in that the wooden lid of the long box had been replaced by a wire cover through which the animal could see the bait. Two poles were as formerly on the floor of the cage, not far from the box. Skirrl almost immediately noticed the banana and tried to get it by gnawing at the box.
It appears from an analysis of the behavior of Skirrl in problem 1 that there developed a single definite and persistent method, namely, that of going to one box in the group, and in case it happened to be a wrong one, of choosing, on emergence from it, the next toward the right end of the group, and so on down the line.
At the end of two more days everything was going so well that it seemed desirable to begin the regular experiment. On the morning of April 19, Skirrl was introduced to the apparatus and given his first series of ten trials on problem 1. This problem demanded the selection of the first door at the left in any group of open doors.
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