NOTES 

 NOTE ON THE SEX BEHAVIOR OF THE POITOU JACKS 



RAYMOND PEARL 



The practical live-stock breeder is in a position to make many 

 interesting and important observations regarding the animals 

 with which he works. What farmers and breeders have put 

 on record furnishes practically the only basic data for the build- 

 ing of a comparative psychology of the larger domestic animals 

 (teste the writings of Darwin, Romanes, Groos, and others). 

 Unfortunately, however, the amount of such raw material for 

 comparative psychological analysis and synthesis which has been 

 made available to the trained psychologist by getting into the 

 literary channels which are familiar or accessible to him, is only 

 a small fraction of the total existing amount. The majority of 

 farmers and stockmen are not prolific authors. Furthermore 

 when their observations are published they are, in nearly every 

 instance, printed in some agricultural paper, where they are 

 most unlikely ever to come to the attention of the psychologist, 

 and where they are at once practically lost for any purpose, 

 owing to the ephemeral character of most such papers. 



In view of these considerations I venture to call the attention 

 of the readers of this journal to some observations which seem 

 to me to be of a good deal of interest and value to the student 

 of the comparative psychology of sex. These observations were 

 recently reported in the Breeders' Gazette* (Chicago), by Mr. 

 John Ashton, a European representative of the Gazette, and 

 an accurate and well-informed writer on live-stock matters. 

 The observations here recorded were made by Mr. Ashton during 

 a visit to the famous mule-breeding district of France, Poitou. 

 Here are bred mules of an especially valuable sort, and it was 

 to study this mule breeding industry at first-hand that Mr. 

 Ashton went there. In the course of a very interesting general 



* Vol. LXIII, pp. 596-597, March 5, 1913. 



297 



