LITERATURE FOR 1916 ON THE BEHAVIOR OF VERTEBRATES 441 



QUESTIONS OF INHERITANCE 



The behavior of stock and inbred rats was investigated by 

 Mrs. Yerkes (29). She used the circular maze and the Yerkes 

 discrimination box. On the whole the evidence .seemed to show 

 a greater facility in learning on the part of the stock (control) 

 rats. The experimenter says : ' The inbred rats showed an 

 ability to form the same habits as the stock rats but they did 

 it more slowly and with greater irregularities from day to day." 



Another paper on inheritance is that of Bagg (1), called " In- 

 dividual differences and family resemblances in animal behavior." 

 He used 90 mice and the very simple maze of Cattell. Each 

 individual was given 1 7 trials, but the first two trials are elimi- 

 nated from the summaries because, the author says, they are 

 so largely affected by chance. The method of experimentation 

 was loose. The conclusions, which are based entirely on the 

 mean variations in the time records, are, that the resemblances 

 between individuals of the same litter are twice as great as 

 the resemblances between the individuals of the entire group. 



The behavior of chicks hatched from alcoholized eggs was 

 the subject of research published by Fletcher, Cowan and Arlitt 

 (8). By alcoholized eggs they mean eggs which had been treated 

 with alcohol before incubating. Among the experiments were 

 those concerned with light, pecking and drinking reactions, and 

 maze learning. From the experiments, alcohol seems to have 

 no specific effects. Such differences as were observed might 

 easily have been due to malnutrition during hatching and could 

 readily be produced by other agents. 



GENERAL 



Perhaps the most important paper that appeared during the 

 year was Watson's (26) " Place of the conditioned reflex in 

 psychology." The laboratory technique is carefully shown and 

 then there follows a description of the general characteristics 

 of the reflex with methods of dealing with them, ways of using 

 the reflex to obtain differential reactions and finaily the range 

 and applicability of the method. 



Peterson (21) contributed an additional explanation to the 

 building up of a complex act or, perhaps one would better say, 

 he elaborates a theory which has been implicit in other theories. 

 Briefly, it is this: No partial response in a complex situation 



