

DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY 



503 



preceding century, and Bethe, Buttel- 

 Reepen, and Wheeler among the later 

 workers made worthy contributions to our 

 knowledge of insect behavior. The work 

 of Bethe (100, 101, 103) on the ant and 

 bee will serve as examples of the more 

 strictly experimental type of investiga- 

 tion. In 1899, Kline (154) extended the 

 maze method to the wasp, and in 1901, 

 Fielde employed, in her study of the ant, 

 a maze more complex than any Lubbock 

 had used. 



The extensive work of Parker C185, 186) 

 on fishes, which began about i^o'l, may 

 be taken to mark the beginning of a more 

 systematic study of the behavior of the 

 lower vertebrates than had hitherto been 

 made. The contribution of Parker and 

 his pupils in America, and later that of 

 Hess (142.) and others in Germany, has 

 been confined mainly to the field of 

 sensory capacities. The earliest study of 

 habit formation in lower vertebrates 

 seems to have been that of Thorndike 

 (1899) on Fundulus, making use of a four 

 compartment maze. The well-known 

 experiment of Triplett (2.16) on the perch 

 appeared two years later. Aside from 

 several early experiments on the auditory 

 sensitivity of the frog, Yerkes deserves 

 credit for having adapted the maze method 

 to the turtle in 1901, and to the frog two 

 years later. 



The most important event of the decade 

 by far was the application of laboratory 

 methods to the higher vertebrates on an 

 extensive scale. An excellent beginning 

 had been made by Morgan in his simple 

 tests of instinctive and learning capacities 

 in the chick, and in other species of birds. 

 Morgan's work on the chick was followed 

 up by Thorndike (2.12.) and by Kline (154), 

 both of whom made use to some extent of 

 the incubator method of Morgan. The 

 work on learning and imitation in the 

 chick was further extended by Thorndike, 



who arranged more complex problem 

 situations than Morgan had done. His 

 improvised labyrinths of simple design, 

 made by setting up books, or other small 

 objects, represent the first use of the maze 

 method on birds. A little later Small 

 devised the Hampton Court maze, which 

 was used in the original or modified 

 form by Porter, Rouse and other early 

 workers in their systematic studies of the 

 behavior of birds. 



To Thorndike, working at Harvard and 

 Columbia, and to Kline and Small of the 

 Clark University laboratory belongs the 

 credit for independently adapting experi- 

 mental methods to the study of mammals . 

 As early as 1897-98, Thorndike and Kline 

 devised various types of problem box, the 

 monograph (zi2.) of the former on the cat 

 and dog appearing in June, 1898, while the 

 first report (154) of the latter on the white 

 rat was published the following January. 

 A second report by Kline appeared in 

 April, 1899 (155), while the more com- 

 plete investigation of Small making use of 

 Kline's problem boxes was published in 

 January, 1900. During the two years 

 previous, Small had made a careful genetic 

 study of the behavior of the white rat, 

 and had constructed the well-known 

 Hampton Court maze. In January, 1901, 

 he reported his now classic maze-learning 

 experiment on the white and brown rat, 

 including also preliminary tests on the 

 role of smell and vision. This was the 

 first application of the maze method to 

 mammals; in fact, the term '''maze" and 

 the now general use of this method in the 

 animal laboratory dates from the work of 

 Small. The white rat, first used in 

 behavior work by Kline and Small, soon 

 became the standard laboratory animal in 

 connection with the more systematic lines 

 of research. 



Although the credit for beginning the 

 experimental work on mammals properly 



