No. 554] ADAPTATION IN ANIMAL REACTIONS 



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of a number of responses that might be made to a given 

 set of conditions, one may be quite as appropriate for 

 the continuance of life as another. In other words ver- 

 satility seems to be a more truthful description of the 

 actual conditions in animal life than the rather rigid 

 state implied in the application of the idea of adaptive 

 responses. Animal reactions in most cases seem to be 

 more of the nature of fluctuations than of mutations, to 

 borrow a related phraseology; they are individual idio- 

 syncracies that are insignificant so far as the race is con- 

 cerned and are usually not interfered with because of the 

 generous latitude permitted by the environment. From 

 this standpoint animal reactions have a variety whose 

 explanation is to be sought for, as adaptations, but as an 

 expression of the momentary physical and chemical 

 make-up of the individual, a condition which does not 

 easily repeat itself and which therefore agrees with the 

 diversity of reactions exhibited by the organism. 



Yet it is not for a moment to be assumed that adapta- 

 tions are not evident among animal reactions. When it 

 is remembered what enormous numbers of young are 

 lost in the process of producing one adult and that much 

 of this loss is due to misdirected animal reactions, it is 

 impossible to believe that adaptations, as roughed out by 

 a crude selective process, should not have become in- 

 grained in most animals. In fact any adequate survey of 

 the general field of animal reactions shows at once that 

 the main topographic features are adaptational and when 

 one reflects that this has probably been brought about in 

 large part by the elimination of myriads of individuals 

 mainly on the basis of some false step in their reactions, 

 one is compelled to admit that in our zeal for the study 

 of animal behavior, we may have missed the importance 

 of the lesson to be drawn from animal misbehavior. But 

 however this may be, I am convinced that, though the 

 main reaction systems of animals are essentially adap- 

 tive, the details of their ordinary flow of responses is 

 mostly free from adaptive influence and proceeds on 



