weysse] VOTES OX AX/MA L BEHAVIOR 311 



NOTES ON ANIMAL BEHAVIOR 



BY ARTHUR W. WEYSSE 



Professor of Zoology, Boston University 



[Editoral Note. — The following from a scientific journal deserves a place in 

 The Review because teachers of nature-study are so often face to face with 

 problems of animal behavior.] 



It has been suggested to me that it would be worth while to put on 

 record two or three rather curious instances of animal behavior which 

 have come to my notice during the past few weeks. The subject of 

 these observations is a two-year-old black-and-tan terrier belonging 

 to my sister. A few weeks ago as the family was at dinner one even- 

 ing my mother said, "What did the postman bring this afternoon?" 

 "Only a couple of advertising cards," said my sister, "which I threw in 

 the waste-basket." Nothing more was said on the subject, but a 

 moment later the dog, who had been sitting on a chair in the same 

 room, ran to the basket, and taking one of the very cards referred to 

 in his mouth, ran around the table and stood with it beside my 

 mother, looking up into her face and wagging his tail. I fear that 

 some of our popular writers on animals would at once attribute a 

 rather remarkable reasoning power lo this dog, saying that he thought 

 my mother would like to see the card, and so selecting it fiom the 

 others in the basket took it to her and expected to be rewarded for 

 his thoughtfulness. But theie is a much moie reasonable explana- 

 tion. He is still very playful, and as he jumped from the chair and 

 ran about the room the card projecting above the edge of the basket 

 caught his eye, and the play instinct prompted him to seize it. 

 The fact that he did this just after my sist-.-r had spoken of the 

 card was a mere coincidence. "His running to my mother with the 

 card is easily explained. Several months ago, while he was still 

 a puppy, he frequently pulled papers from this same basket and 

 was punished for doing so, until he entirely gave up the habit. 

 As soon as he had taken the card from the basket, the memory of 

 former punishments for similar acts doubtless recurred to him. Now 

 my mother is intensely sympathetic, and whenever he is punished or 

 likely to be punished he invariably runs to her, knowing that he will 

 be petted and may even get a lump of sugar; if the recollection of 



