EARLY MATING AND PREGNANCY IN THE MONKEY1

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Abstract
THE FUNDAMENTAL similarity of the menstrual cycles of the human and the rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta) provides an opportunity for collecting exact information on mating in relation to pregnancy by the use of a superb experimental animal under objective observation. The breeding of the rhesus monkey has been carried on in this laboratory under controlled conditions since 1935. Following the basic work of others (Corner 1923, Allen 1926, and Hartman 1932), our results have been such that we have maintained a self-replacing and expanding colony of animals, now including four generations, which has yielded a considerable mass of mating records. A review (van Wagenen 1945) of the first ten years enabled us to state that during the latter half of that time when the mating routine had become stabilized and confined to a discrete number of hours in the cycle, about one-third of,the animals, whether nulliparous or multiparous, became pregnant after a single mating. Of course, certain obvious contributive conditions, physiological and social, were met. In the following year the same animals were mated in the same way except for one change in the experimental procedure, viz., the time of mating was displaced six days later in the menstrual cycle.

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