122 BULLETIN OY THE UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN. 



This gradually and steadily increased until, last spring, it seemed 

 to me from daily observation that the alcoholics were not much more 

 than half as active as the normals. How to secure an objective ex- 

 pression of this fact presented some difficulties at first. To put them 

 in large recording cages, such as we use in the laboratory to study 

 the daily activity of rats and mice, would clearly be an imposition 

 on a dog's good nature, and would possibly suppress his activity in 

 proportion to his intelligence. To watch four dogs during the twenty- 

 four hours would require four observers, and their presence would be 

 a disturbing factor. 



"Pedometers were thought of, but none could be found suitably con- 

 structed for use with the dogs. Finally, Waterbury watches were 

 obtained, and, by removing the hair springs, weighting the balance 

 wheels unequally, and by proper adjustment of buffing pins so that 

 the balance wheel could move just far enough to release the escape- 

 ment, a watch resulted which ran only when shaken. After a month 

 of preliminary trials an adjustment was attained so delicate that the 

 watch could hardly be jarred so slightly as not to release the escape- 

 ment one tooth, and the two could be shaken, violently or gently, 

 and in any position for an hour at a time (fastened firmly together) 

 without showing a variation of more than two seconds on reading 

 the hands. 



"The watches are now placed in stout leather pockets in specially 

 constructed collars and the dogs allowed to wear them. * * * The 

 watches were read every evening at exactly six o'clock. Bum is seen 

 to develop seventy-one per cent, of Nig's activity, and Tipsy only fifty- 

 seven per cent, of Topsy's. 



"The watches, of course give us only the total quantity of spon- 

 taneous daily movement of each dog with no indication as to its 

 quality. Something to give a qualitative expression of strength, abil- 

 ity, and resistance to fatigue was devised, which consisted in a series 

 of competitive tests at retrieving a ball. The balls were thrown in 

 rapid succession across the university gymnasium, one hundred feet, 

 and a record was kept of the dogs that started for it and of the one 

 that succeeded in bringing it back. One hundred balls constituted a 

 test, and to throw them consumed about fifty minutes. 



"In the first series, consisting of 1,400 balls thrown on successive 

 days, January, 1896, the normal dogs retrieved 922, the alcoholics 478. 

 This gives the alcoholics an efficiency of only 51.9 per cent, as com- 

 pared with the normals. Bum's ability in this series as compared with 

 Nig's is only thirty-two per cent. (See Fig. 18.) It was also noted 

 that Bum and Tipsy were much more easily fatigued than the nor- 

 mals. 



