While recognizing that the task of prospecting for an anthropoid or
primate station may in its outcome prove incomparably more important for
the biological and sociological sciences and for human welfare than my
experimental study of ideational behavior, I give the latter first place
in this report, reserving for the concluding section an account of the
situation regarding our knowledge of the monkeys, apes, and other
primates, and a description of a plan and program for the thorough-going
and long continued study of these organisms in a permanent station or
research institute.

In 1915, a long desired opportunity came to me to devote myself
undividedly to tasks which I have designated above as "prospecting" for
an anthropoid station and experimenting with monkeys and apes. First of
all, the interruption of my academic duties by sabbatical leave gave me
free time. But in addition to this freedom for research, I needed
animals and equipment. These, too, happily, were most satisfactorily
provided, as I shall now describe.

When in 1913, while already myself engaged in seeking the establishment
of an anthropoid station, I heard of the founding of such an institution
at Orotava, Tenerife, the Canary Islands, I immediately made inquiries
of the founder of the station, Doctor Max Rothmann of Berlin, concerning
his plans (Rothmann, 1912).[1] As a result of our correspondence, I was
invited to visit and make use of the facilities of the Orotava station
and to consider with its founder the possibility of coöperative work
instead of the establishing of an American station. This invitation I
gratefully accepted with the expectation of spending the greater part of
the year 1915 on the island of Tenerife. But the outbreak of the war
rendered my plan impracticable, while at the same time destroying all
reasonable ground for hope of profitable coöperation with the Germans in