Rouse, Respiration in Pigeons. 495 



ic method, especially in the study of feeling^ and attention," has 

 long been recognized in human psychology, although the nu- 

 merous difficulties involved in the interpretation of animal reac- 

 tions have discouraged its use by comparative psychologists. 



In the experiments here to be reported an effort was made 

 to obviate some of these difficulties by studying, for purposes 

 of comparison, wholly different forms of reaction to the same stim- 

 uli. It is true that respiratory responses taken by themselves are 

 of little value in the investigation of animal mind. But they 

 assume a different aspect when correlated with directly compar- 

 able responses of a wholly different order. Thus, for example the 

 influence of certain odors upon animal breathing would become 

 material for psychology if we knew the free behavior of the 

 animals in the presence of these same stimuli. Although the 

 results of the present study are few and subject to correction* 

 it is hoped that they may lead to the use of this method in sim- 

 ilar investigations. 



I wished to study the pigeon's respiratory movements by 

 means of a pneumographic tracing secured under conditions as 

 natural as possible. Hence a light, delicate apparatus was con- 

 structed to be worn by the animal when standing at its ease in 

 the cote. The extreme difficulty of fastening the apparatus, 

 however, made it necessary to test the bird in a kind of narrow 

 nest, formed by cutting an oval opening in a fixed horizontal 

 board (see Fig. i, M.). The breast could thus be exposed 

 below and its vertical, or sterno-vertebral, breathing move- 

 ments secured by a tambour and recorded by the usual method.* 

 No attempt was made to register other kinds of breathing 



'See the interesting study by Zoneff and Meumann, Ueber die Begleiter- 

 scheinungen psychischer Vorgange in Athera und Puis, Philosophische Studien, 

 18, 1-113, 1901. 



'See Lehmann's paper, Ueber die Beziehung zwischen Athmung und 

 Aufmerksarakeit, Philosophische Studien, 9, 66-95, 1894. 



'I refer especially to the relative percentages given in Table III. A larger 

 number of animals, tested under conditions more favorable, would give more 

 reliable averages. 



*Langendorff, O. Physiologische Graphik. Leipzig und IVien, 1S91. 



BiNET and Henri. La fatigue intellectuelle. Paris, 1897. 



