340 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



persisted in our attempts, and then as 

 he or she, as the case may have been, 

 was no less persistent, we decided to 

 devote our time and energies to his 

 three companions. Thus, at the ver}^ 

 outset, temperamental peculiarities, per- 

 haps amounting to nothing more than 

 exceptionally strong and persistent 

 fear reactions, served to eliminate one 

 of the individuals from our collection. 



Our space will not permit us to re- 

 cite in detail, as we are tempted to do, 

 the peculiarities which these birds ex- 

 hil)ited during a memorable summer. 

 We must content ourselves with the 

 simple statement that in reactions 

 which may be designated as those of 

 wildness, fear, timidity, curiosity, sus- 

 picion, initiative, sociability, the indi- 

 viduals differed most obviously and 

 importantly. We hope sometime, in 

 justice to the problem of crow temper- 

 ament, to devote a summer to the in- 

 tensive study of sex and individual 

 differences in these extremely intelli- 

 gent birds.i 



Concerning temperament, character, 

 and genius in the Primates, our mate- 

 rials are at once abundant and to us 

 absorbing. Every one who knows any- 

 thing about Primates, high or low, real- 

 izes that in them individuality is more 

 conspicuous for the human observer 

 than in most other organisms. But our 

 results do not justify the conclusion 

 that temperamental differences are 

 more obvious or more important in 

 monkeys, anthropoid apes, or man, than 

 in crows, pigs, or rats. We have come 

 to suspect that the popular opinion con- 

 cerning the matter is due chiefly to 

 similarity of structure and behavior 



1 Coburn, Charles A. The Behavior of the 

 Crow, Corvus Americanus, Aud. Journal of Ani- 

 7nal Behavior, 1914: 4: 185-201. 



Coburn, Charles A., and Yerkes, Robert M. A 

 Study of the Behavior of the Crow, Corvus Ameri- 

 canus, Aud., by the Multiple-Choice Method. 

 Journal of Animal Behavior, 1915: 5: 75-114. 



— in a word, to felt kinship. It is sim- 

 ply because we are more like monkeys 

 and apes that we more readily notice 

 and more highly value their individual 

 characteristics. 



Not so very long ago, we had a splen- 

 did opportunity to become intimately 

 acquainted with two adult male mon- 

 keys of the species Pithecus irus. The 

 one, we shall call Skirrl ; the other, 

 Jimmie. It would be easier to tell what 

 these individuals had in common than 

 to enumerate their differences. Their 

 temperamental divergences constantly 

 amazed us. But here we must content 

 ourselves with an account of a few of 

 the most remarkable differences in be- 

 havior. 



Skirrl's attitude toward the friendly 

 experimenter was frankly aggressive, 

 but not vicious. Jimmie was extremely 

 vicious; he never could be trusted. 

 Skirrl's interest in objects which he 

 could play with or in any wise manipu- 

 late proved inexhaustible, whereas Jim- 

 mie exhibited slight interest in other 

 objects than the members of his species, 

 his enemies, or foods. By a competent 

 observer who had studied him carefully 

 prior to our acquaintance, we were told 

 that Skirrl was feeble-minded. And it 

 certainly seemed so, when, as frequently 

 happened, he sat before an experiment 

 box, yawning repeatedly, and from 

 time to time interrupting these expres- 

 sions of ennui by half-hearted attempts 

 to solve his problem. Whereas Skirrl 

 rather quickly became accustomed to 

 unusual experimental situations, Jim- 

 mie was so wary and distrustful that we 

 finally gave up our attempts to observe 

 his behavior under rigidly controlled 

 conditions, and treated him merely as 

 a visitor in the laboratory. 



One day we noticed Skirrl pounding 

 with a stick a nail which he had found 

 in his cage. We were quick to follow 



