Light and the Behavior of Organisms

New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1911. First printing.

EARLY STUDY OF THE ROLE OF LIGHT IN GUIDING THE BEHAVIOR OF ANIMALS.

13.5x21 cm hardcover, green cloth binding, gilt title to spine, i-xi, 410 pp, 19 pp publisher's catalog. Cover edges rubbed, very good in custom archival mylar cover.

SAMUEL OTTMAR MAST (1871 – 1947) was an American zoologist who studied behavioral physiology, particularly the response to light in protozoa. He received a BS from the University of Michigan in 1899 and worked on a PhD in zoology at Harvard after which he taught at Hope College. He was later invited to join Johns Hopkins University by Herbert Spencer Jennings, directing the zoology department in 1938 just before retiring. Mast's major contributions included a study of locomotion in amoebae. He suggested that the cytoplasm underwent changes in its qualities in different parts, coining the terms plasmasol and plasmagel. He also examined reactions to light in protozoa and invertebrates including analyses of the spectral sensitivity.

REVIEW by Parker, G. H.: Mast's "Light and the behavior of organisms". Journal of Animal Behavior, Vol 1(6), Nov-Dec 1911, 461-464. doi: 10.1037/h0064398: "This volume is the outgrowth of the author's study of the process of orientation in plants and animals, and deals with the methods by which these organisms regulate their activities so as to bend or move toward or from a source of stimulation. The reviewer notes that the book discloses a wealth of facts, many of which are the results of the author's own investigations, and the text consequently has an air of critical authority not often found in extended scientific summaries. The reviewer also notes that the one chief flaw of the volume is one that has been inherited from earlier students in this field of work, and consists in the attempt to apply the trial and error method of orientation to the movements of many of the higher invertebrates, such as the earthworm, fly larvae, etc., to the exclusion of the tropism idea. The Biology Department at Hope College has had a fairly short life as colleges go, but a full one that has led to its present position of strength for the future. The beginning period began in 1898 when President Kollen decided that Hope College needed a Biology Department and hired Samuel Ottmar Mast as the first biology professor. Mast remained until 1908 when he moved to the newly established department of biology at Johns Hopkins University where he became renowned world-wide for his study of motion and behavior in protozoa.