The Dancing Mouse eBook

That at the age of about one month the male dancer should be able to acquire a visual discrimination habit more rapidly than the female, whereas the female can acquire a labyrinth habit more readily than the male, suggests an important difference in the nature of their equipment for habit formation.  One might hazard the suggestion that the male depends more largely upon discrimination of external conditions, whereas the female depends to a greater extent than does the male upon the internal, organic changes which are wrought by acts.  At any rate the female seems to follow a labyrinth path more mechanically, more accurately, more easily, and with less evidence of sense discrimination than does the male.

Finally, in concluding this chapter, I may add that in those aspects of behavior which received attention in the early chapters of this volume the dancers differ very markedly.  Some climb readily on vertical or inclined surfaces to which they can cling; others seldom venture from their horizontally placed dance floor.  Some balance themselves skillfully on narrow bridges; others fall off almost immediately.  My own observations, as well as a comparison of the accounts of the behavior of the dancer which have been given by Cyon, Zoth, and other investigators, lead me to conclude that there are different kinds of dancing mice.  This may be the result of crosses with other species of mice, or it may be merely an expression of the variability of an exceptionally unstable race.

I can see no satisfactory grounds for considering the dancer either abnormal or pathological.  It is a well-established race, with certain peculiarities to which it breeds true; and no pathological structural conditions, so far as I have been able to learn, have been discovered.

I have presented in this chapter on differences a program rather than a completed study.  To carry out fully the lines of work which have been suggested by my observations and by the presentation of results would occupy a skilled observer many months.  I have not as yet succeeded in accomplishing this, but my failure is not due to lack of interest or of effort.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE INHERITANCE OF FORMS OF BEHAVIOR

In a general way those peculiarities of behavior which suggested the name dancing mouse are inherited.  Generation after generation of the mice run in circles, whirl, and move the head restlessly and jerkily from side to side.  But these forms of behavior vary greatly.  Some individuals whirl infrequently and sporadically; others whirl frequently and persistently, at certain hours of the day.  Some are unable to climb a vertical surface; others do so readily.  Some respond to sounds; others give no indications of ability to hear.  I propose in this chapter to present certain facts concerning the inheritance of individual peculiarities of behavior, and to state the results of a series of experiments by which I had hoped to test the inheritance of individually acquired forms of behavior.