Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Michael Oltz,
Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
[Illustration: DANCING MICE--SNIFFING AND EATING.]
THE ANIMAL BEHAVIOR SERIES. VOLUME I
THE DANCING MOUSE
A Study in Animal Behavior
BY
ROBERT M. YERKES, Ph.D.
INSTRUCTOR IN COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY IN HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
The Cartwright Prize of the Alumni Association of the College of
Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, was awarded, in 1907, for an
Essay which comprised the first twelve chapters of this volume.
1907
IN LOVE AND GRATITUDE
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO
MY MOTHER
PREFACE
This book is the direct result of what, at the time of its occurrence,
seemed to be an unimportant incident in the course of my scientific work--
the presentation of a pair of dancing mice to the Harvard Psychological
Laboratory. My interest in the peculiarities of behavior which the
creatures exhibited, as I watched them casually from day to day, soon
became experiment-impelling, and almost before I realized it, I was in the
midst of an investigation of their senses and intelligence.
The longer I observed and experimented with them, the more numerous became
the problems which the dancers presented to me for solution. From a study
of the senses of hearing and sight I was led to investigate, in turn, the
various forms of activity of which the mice are capable; the ways in which
they learn to react adaptively to new or novel situations; the facility
with which they acquire habits; the duration of habits; the roles of the
various senses in the acquisition and performance of certain habitual
acts; the efficiency of different methods of training; and the inheritance
of racial and individually acquired forms of behavior.
In the course of my experimental work I discovered, much to my surprise,
that no accurate and detailed account of this curiously interesting animal
existed in the English language, and that in no other language were all
the facts concerning it available in a single book. This fact, in
connection with my appreciation of the exceptional value of the dancer as
a pet and as material for the scientific study of animal behavior, has led
me to supplement the results of my own observation by presenting in this
little book a brief and not too highly technical description of the
general characteristics and history of the dancer.
The purposes which I have had in mind as I planned and wrote the book are
three: first, to present directly, clearly, and briefly the results of my
investigation; second, to give as complete an account of the dancing mouse
as a thorough study of the literature on the animal and long-continued
observation on my own part should make possible; third, to provide a
supplementary text-book on mammalian behavior and on methods of studying
animal behavior for use in connection with courses in Comparative
Psychology, Comparative Physiology, and Animal Behavior.
It is my conviction that the scientific study of animal behavior and of
animal mind can be furthered more just at present by intensive special
investigations than by extensive general books. Methods of research in
this field are few and surprisingly crude, for the majority of
investigators have been more deeply interested in getting results than in
perfecting methods. In writing this account of the dancing mouse I have
attempted to lay as much stress upon the development of my methods of work
as upon the results which the methods yielded. In fact, I have used the
dancer as a means of exhibiting a variety of methods by which the behavior
and intelligence of animals may be studied. As it happens the dancer is an
ideal subject for the experimental study of many of the problems of animal
behavior. It is small, easily cared for, readily tamed, harmless,
incessantly active, and it lends itself satisfactorily to a large number
of experimental situations. For laboratory courses in Comparative
Psychology or Comparative Physiology it well might hold the place which
the frog now holds in courses in Comparative Anatomy.
Gratefully, and with this expression of my thanks, I acknowledge my
indebtedness to Professor Hugo Münsterberg for placing at my command the
resources of the Harvard Psychological Laboratory and for advice and
encouragement throughout my investigation; to Professor Edwin B. Holt for
valuable assistance in more ways than I can mention; to Professor Wallace
C. Sabine for generous aid in connection with the experiments on hearing;
to Professor Theobald Smith for the examination of pathological dancers;
to Miss Mary C. Dickerson for the photographs of dancing mice which are
reproduced in the frontispiece; to Mr. Frank Ashmore for additional
photographs which I have been unable to use in this volume; to Mr. C. H.
Toll for the drawings for Figures 14 and 20; to Doctors H. W. Rand and C.
S. Berry for valuable suggestions on the basis of a critical reading of
the proof sheets; and to my wife, Ada Watterson Yerkes, for constant aid
throughout the experimental work and in the preparation of this volume.
R. M. Y.
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS,
August, 1907.
CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
LITERATURE ON THE DANCING MOUSE
CHAPTER I
CHARACTERISTICS, ORIGIN, AND HISTORY
Peculiarities of the dancing mouse--Markings and method of keeping record
of individuals--The dancer in China and Japan (Kishi, Mitsukuri, Hatai)--
Theories concerning the origin of the race: selectional breeding; the
inheritance of an acquired character; mutation, inheritance, and
selectional breeding; pathological changes; natural selection--Instances
of the occurrence of dancers among other kinds of mice--Results of
crossing dancer with other kinds of mice.