Organic Connection Between Physical and Psychical 257 



thoughtfully has been impressed with the exuberance of their 

 performances. That they are ever wont to overdo thlnirs, 

 even operations which are wlien done in measured fashion 

 absolutely essential to their existence, is matter of common 

 knowledge. Holmes has some comments under this head 

 which may fitly introduce our presentation. "With all their 

 wonderful adaptiveness instincts are far from ideallv per- 

 fect. Much of Mark Twain's remarks on the futility and 

 imbecility, the wasted effort and labor at cross purj)oses 

 shown in the behavior of ants may easily be verified by anv 

 observer." ^^ 



A common form taken by excessiveness of action is repe- 

 tition. Very many, perhaps all, animals are notorious re- 

 peaters. A few out of the many available instances will 

 suffice to fix the phenomenon in mind. Some time ago a 

 small whale (probably a half-grown Humpback, Megapfera 

 versabilis) came near shore at La Jolla, California, and re- 

 mained in the same small area for days. While there it 

 went through a particular set of movements known to whal- 

 ers as "breaching" scores of times, each set being exactly, 

 so far as one could see from the shore, like every other set. 

 The performance consisted, in this case, of a leap out of 

 the water, which carried the body clear of the surface of 

 the sea, the direction of emergence being probably thirty 

 degrees from the perpendicular. During the ascent the ani- 

 mal turned with a characteristic twist to the left and came 

 down on its head and left side wdth a great splash. Once 

 back in the ocean the creature reversed the course it was 

 going when making the leap, returned to some distance from 

 where it had emerged, reversed its course again, and re- 

 peated the leap identically, to all appearances, even as to 

 the spot of emergence and direction of travel. Wliy so 

 many times the same performance in the same spot? Tliat 

 is the problem which concerns us here. Even though we 

 conceive it to be somehow adaptive — connected in some in- 



