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[Illustration: DANCING MICE—SNIFFING AND EATING.]
A Study in Animal Behavior
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
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 PsychologicalLaboratory. My interest in the peculiarities of behavior which thecreatures exhibited, as I watched them casually from day to day, soonbecame experiment-impelling, and almost before I realized it, I was in themidst of an investigation of their senses and intelligence.
The longer I observed and experimented with them, the more numerous becamethe problems which the dancers presented to me for solution. From a studyof the senses of hearing and sight I was led to investigate, in turn, thevarious forms of activity of which the mice are capable; the ways in whichthey learn to react adaptively to new or novel situations; the facilitywith which they acquire habits; the duration of habits; the roles of thevarious senses in the acquisition and performance of certain habitualacts; the efficiency of different methods of training; and the inheritanceof 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 animalexisted in the English language, and that in no other language were allthe facts concerning it available in a single book. This fact, inconnection with my appreciation of the exceptional value of the dancer asa pet and as material for the scientific study of animal behavior, has ledme to supplement the results of my own observation by presenting in thislittle book a brief and not too highly technical description of thegeneral characteristics and history of the dancer.
The purposes which I have had in mind as I planned and wrote the book arethree: first, to present directly, clearly, and briefly the results of myinvestigation; second, to give as complete an account of the dancing mouseas a thorough study of the literature on the animal and long-continuedobservation on my own part should make possible; third, to provide asupplementary text-book on mammalian behavior and on methods of studyinganimal behavior for use in connection with courses in ComparativePsychology, Comparative Physiology, and Animal Behavior.
It is my conviction that the scientific study of animal behavior and ofanimal mind can be furthered more just at present by intensive specialinvestigations than by extensive general books. Methods of research inthis field are few and surprisingly crude, for the majority ofinvestigators have been more deeply interested in getting results than inperfecting methods. In writing this account of the dancing mouse I hav