The Dancing Mouse: A Study in Animal BehaviorYerkes, Robert Mearns
Science
The Dancing Mouse: A Study in Animal Behavior
Yerkes, Robert Mearns
Animal behavior; Dancing mice
So far as the reliability of the anatomical work which has been discussed
is in question, it would seem that Rawitz's results are rendered somewhat
unsatisfactory by the carelessness of Cyon in fixing the materials; that
Panse's descriptions and comparisons are neither careful nor detailed
enough to be convincing; that the work of Alexander and Kreidl, as well as
that of Kishi, gives evidence of accuracy and trustworthiness. The fact
that the statements of Alexander and Kreidl frequently do not agree with
those of Kishi proves that there are serious errors in the work of one or
another of these investigators. Cyon's discussion of the anatomy of the
dancer is not to be taken too seriously, for by his theory of space
perception and of a sixth sense he was unduly biased in favor of the
structural peculiarities described by Rawitz. Nevertheless, his discussion
is not without interest, for the way in which he succeeded in making every
structural fact which Rawitz suggested fit into his theories and help to
account for the functional peculiarities which he had himself observed, is
extremely clever and indicates a splendid scientific imagination.
To sum up: All the facts of behavior and physiology which have been
established lead us to expect certain marked structural differences
between the dancer and the common mouse. The bizarre movements, lack of
equilibrational ability, and the nervous shaking of the head suggest the
presence of peculiar conditions in the semicircular canals or their sense
organs; and the lack of sensitiveness to sounds indicates defects in the
cochlea. Yet, strange as it may seem to those who are not familiar with
the difficulties of the study of the minute structure of these organs, no
structural conditions have been discovered which account satisfactorily
for the dancer's peculiarities of behavior. That the ear is unusual in
form is highly probable, since three of the four investigators who have
studied it carefully agree that it differs more or less markedly from that
of the common mouse. But, on the other hand, the serious lack of agreement
in their several descriptions of the conditions which they observed
renders their results utterly inconclusive and extremely unsatisfactory.
The status of our knowledge of the structure of the central nervous system
is even less satisfactory, if possible, than that of our knowledge of
those portions of the peripheral nervous system which would naturally be
supposed to have to do with such functional peculiarities as the dancer
exhibits. So far as I have been able to learn, no investigator has
carefully examined the brain and spinal cord in comparison with those of
the common mouse, and only those who have failed to find any structural
basis for the facts of behavior in the organs of the ear have attempted to
account for the dancer's whirling and deafness by assuming that the
cerebellum is unusual in structure. We are, therefore, forced to conclude
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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