24 COLEMAN R. GRIFFITH 



and such other responses as whimpering, increased rate of 

 respiration and heart-beat, and visceral disturbances. Just 

 what the exciting object may be, aside from that expressed by 

 the phrase 'presence of a cat' cannot be stated. The sense- 

 department involved, however, was established as follows. 

 If a cat is placed upon a cage when the room is wholly dark and 

 five minutes later the light is switched on, (care being taken to 

 keep other conditions normal) a striking tableau is presented of 

 every rat in a group huddled in some corner of the cage and 

 giving evidence of the same behavior as above described. The 

 visual factor, the form and movements of the cat, seems, there- 

 fore, to play no essential part. Rats placed in an enclosed 

 space which has previously contained a cat respond as above. 

 The response to the odor carried on the hands or hi a damp cloth 

 which has been rubbed for some tune over a cat is not so sudden 

 nor so intense but nevertheless striking. There is no response 

 to a cat encased in a glass jar even though the cat makes a 

 variety of movements. One rat (mentioned above) which may 

 have been almost if not entirely anosmic from a pneumonial 

 affection was undisturbed by the presence of the cat; for it 

 displayed much interest in the cat's feet and body as they came 

 in contact with the cage. Three subjects rendered anosmic by 

 cotton stuffed in the nostrils were likewise undisturbed. It 

 seems quite probable, therefore, that an olfactory quality of 

 some sort is an adequate stimulus for the arousal of the behavior 

 described. The rat does not so respond to the lungs, the heart, 

 the blood, the intestines, the feces, the urine, a portion of the ab- 

 dominal wall, or a section of the muscles of the hind leg of the 

 cat. It probably does respond to the hair, when detached from 

 the body; possibly to the skin, and more definitely to the nose. 

 These portions of the dead cat did not, however, arouse unusual 

 behavior in the rats with any amount of intensity. The tem- 

 porary conclusion of investigations of this kind is that there is 

 some olfactory quality about the living cat which sets off the 

 responses just described. It is probably safer to describe the 

 behavior itself than definitely to say that it is fear. The work of 



