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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLII 



University, but lacking the single-minded leadership of the other 

 two, the attack on the problems has there been less unified and 

 effective. Thorndike, whose work some years ago gave such 

 impetus to the whole subject, has unfortunately been drawn into 

 other work, or we should doubtless have another most effective 

 center for such investigations. Outside of the United States 

 the scientific study of the behavior of the higher animals is a 

 negligible quantity, compared with what comes from the centers 

 named. The active French movement in comparative psy- 

 chology, under the influence of Bohn, Pieron and others, has 

 been thus far limited mainly to the invertebrates. 



At the laboratories we have named the work on animals is 

 carried on by the aid of such accurate appliances and methods 

 as have long been developed for the investigation of the physio- 

 logical psychology of man, with ingenious modifications and ad- 

 ditions as required by the peculiarities of the subject. This 

 gives the work an almost uniquely precise and scientific char- 

 acter, as compared with most other studies in animal behavior. 

 Most other workers have been compelled to content themselves 

 with apparatus, observations and experiments of a more "home- 

 made" character. The two leaders, one by training a zoologist 

 and psychologist, the other a physiologist and psychologist, have 

 been devoting themselves largely to rats and mice of late, while 

 followers have made side excursions into the territory of cats, 

 dogs and raccoons. It is necessary to concentrate the attack 

 somewhere, and for the present the rats and mice are bearing the 

 brunt. We shall pass in review the recent contributions from 

 the centers named, limiting ourselves at present to work in- 

 fluenced from Harvard. 



From Harvard we have first the elaborate study of the dan- 

 cing mouse, by Dr. Yerkes. 1 Perhaps the most striking feature 

 of this work lies in the elegant and fertile methods devised by 

 the author, and of course in the results attained by these 

 methods. The main method consists in a sort of "Lady or the 

 Tiger" alternative presented to the unsuspecting mouse. He 

 is invited to enter one of two doors; one leads to an electric 

 shock, the other to freedom and food. The fateful portals are 

 marked with signs of various sorts, — cards of different shapes, 

 markings, color, brightness, odor, etc. The "right" and "wrong" 

 doors can be alternated at the will of the experimenter, as can 



1 Yerkes, E. M. The Dancing Mouse, a Study in Animal Behavior. 

 The Animal Behavior Series, Vol. I, 290 pages. The Macmillan Co., 1907. 



