 <p>as mentioned above, just printing will invoke the toString method of the object. As this method has not be overriden, the toString method of Object gets invoked. The exact output is specified in the javadocs <a href="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Object.html#toString()" rel="nofollow">http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Object.html#toString()</a></p> <p>which says </p> <pre><code> getClass().getName() + '@' + Integer.toHexString(hashCode()) </code></pre> <p>i.e. it is the class name + "@" + the HexString of the objects hashCode() method</p>