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TITLE: THE DANCING MOUSE
AUTHOR: ROBERT M. YERKES
EBOOK: E00629 (O'Briens Book Cellar)

[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 Muensterberg 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.

CHAPTER II

FEEDING, BREEDING, AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE YOUNG

Methods of keeping and caring for dancers--Cages, nest-boxes, and
materials for nest--Cleansing cages--Food supply and feeding--Importance
of cleanliness, warmth, and pure food--Relations of males and females,
fighting--The young, number in a litter--Care of young--Course of
development--Comparison of young of dancer with young of common mouse--
Diary account of the course of development of a typical litter of dancers.

CHAPTER III

BEHAVIOR: DANCE MOVEMENTS

Dancing--Restlessness and excitability--Significance of restlessness--
Forms of dance: whirling, circling, and figure-eights--Direction of
whirling and circling: right whirlers, left whirlers, and mixed whirlers--
Sex differences in dancing--Time and periodicity of dancing--Influence of
light on activity--Necessity for prolonged observation of behavior.

CHAPTER IV

BEHAVIOR: EQUILIBRATION AND DIZZINESS

Muscular coordination--Statements of Cyon and Zoth concerning behavior--
Control of movements, orientation, equilibration, movement on inclined
surfaces, climbing--The tracks of the dancer--Absence of visual
dizziness--Comparison of the behavior of the dancer with that of the
common mouse when they are rotated in a cyclostat--Behavior of blinded
dancers (Cyon, Alexander and Kreidl, Kishi)--Cyon's two types of dancer--
Phenomena of behavior for which structural bases are sought: dance
movements; lack of response to sounds; deficiency in equilibrational
ability; lack of visual and rotational dizziness.

CHAPTER V

STRUCTURAL PECULIARITIES AND BEHAVIOR

The functions of the ear--Structure of the ear of the dancer as described
by Rawitz, by Panse, by Baginsky, by Alexander and Kreidl, and by Kishi--
Cyon's theory of the relation of the semicircular canals to space
perception--Condition of the auditory organs--Condition of the
equilibrational organs--Condition of the sound-transmitting organs--The
bearing of the results of anatomical investigations upon the facts of
behavior.

CHAPTER VI

THE SENSE OF HEARING

Experiments on hearing in the dancer made by Rawitz, by Panse, by Cyon, by
Alexander and Kreidl, by Zoth, and by Kishi--Hearing and the voice--
Methods of testing sensitiveness to sounds--Results of tests with adults--
Importance of indirect method of experimentation--Results of tests with
young--The period of auditory sensitiveness--Individual differences.

CHAPTER VII

THE SENSE OF SIGHT: BRIGHTNESS VISION

What is known concerning sight in the dancer--Brightness vision and color
vision--Methods of testing brightness vision, the visual discrimination
apparatus--Motives for discrimination and choice--Punishment versus reward
as an incentive in animal experiments--Hunger as an incentive--An electric
stimulus as an incentive--Conditions for brightness vision tests--
White-black vision--Evidence of preference--Check experiments--Conclusion.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SENSE OF SIGHT: BRIGHTNESS VISION (_Continued_)

The delicacy of brightness discrimination--Methods of testing the dancer's
ability to detect slight differences in brightness--Results of tests with
gray papers--Relation of intensity of visual stimuli to the threshold of
discrimination--Weber's law apparatus and method of experimentation--
Results of Weber's law tests--Practice effects, the training of vision--
Description of the behavior of the dancer in the discrimination box

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