The Attitudes of Animals in Motion Part 1

The Att.i.tudes of Animals in Motion.

by Eadweard Muybridge.

Royal Inst.i.tution of Great Britain.

EXTRA EVENING MEETING,

Monday, March 13, 1882.

H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES, K.G. F.R.S. Vice-Patron and Honorary Member, in the Chair.

EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE, of San Francisco.

_The Att.i.tudes of Animals in Motion, ill.u.s.trated with the Zoopraxiscope._

The problem of animal mechanism has engaged the attention of mankind during the entire period of the world's history.

Job describes the action of the horse; Homer, that of the ox; it engaged the profound attention of Aristotle, and Borelli devoted a lifetime to its attempted solution. In every age, and in every country, philosophers have found it a subject of exhaustless research. Marey, the eminent French savant of our own day, dissatisfied with the investigations of his predecessors, and with the object of obtaining more accurate information than their works afforded him, employed a system of flexible tubes, connected at one end with elastic air-chambers, which were attached to the shoes of a horse; and at the other end with some mechanism, held in the hand of the animal's rider. The alternate compression and expansion of the air in the chambers caused pencils to record upon a revolving cylinder the successive or simultaneous action of each foot, as it correspondingly rested upon or was raised from the ground. By this original and ingenious method, much interesting and valuable information was obtained, and new light thrown upon movements until then but imperfectly understood.

While the philosopher was exhausting his endeavours to expound the laws that control, and the elements that effect the movements a.s.sociated with animal life, the artist, with a few exceptions, seems to have been content with the observations of his earliest predecessors in design, and to have accepted as authentic without further inquiry, the pictorial and sculptural representations of moving animals bequeathed from the remote ages of tradition.

When the body of an animal is being carried forward with uniform motion, the limbs in their relations to it have alternately a progressive and a retrogressive action, their various portions accelerating in comparative speed and repose as they extend downwards to the feet, which are subjected to successive changes from a condition of absolute rest, to a varying increased velocity in comparison with that of the body.

The action of no single limb can be availed of for artistic purposes without a knowledge of the synchronous action of the other limbs; and to the extreme difficulty, almost impossibility, of the mind being capable of appreciating the simultaneous motion of the four limbs of an animal, even in the slower movements, may be attributed the innumerable errors into which investigators by observation have been betrayed. When these synchronous movements and the successive att.i.tudes they occasion are understood, we at once see the simplicity of animal locomotion, in all its various types and alternations. The walk of a quadruped being its slowest progressive movement would seem to be a very simple action, easy of observation and presenting but little difficulty for a.n.a.lysis, yet it has occasioned interminable controversies among the closest and most experienced observers.

When, during a gallop, the fore and hind legs are severally and consecutively thrust forwards and backwards to their fullest extent, their comparative inaction may create in the mind of the careless observer an impression of indistinct outlines; these successive appearances were probably combined by the earliest sculptors and painters, and with grotesque exaggeration adopted as the solitary position to ill.u.s.trate great speed. Or, as is very likely, excessive projection of limb was intended to symbolise speed, just as excess in size was an indication of rank. This opinion is to some extent corroborated by the productions of the Grecian artists in their best period, when their heroes are represented of the same size as other men, and their horses in att.i.tudes more nearly resembling those possible for them to a.s.sume. The remarkable conventional att.i.tude of the Egyptians, however, has, with few modifications, been used by artists of nearly every age to represent the action of galloping, and prevails without recognised correction in all civilised countries at the present day.

The ambition and perhaps also the province of art in its most exalted sense, is to be a delineator of impressions, a creator of effects, rather than a recorder of facts. Whether in the ill.u.s.trations of the att.i.tudes of animals in motion the artist is justified in sacrificing truth, for an impression so vague as to be dispelled by the first studied observation, is a question perhaps as much a subject of controversy now as it was in the time of Lysippus, who ridiculed other sculptors for making men as they existed in nature; boasting that he himself made them as they ought to be.

A few eminent artists, notable among whom is Meissonier, have endeavoured in depicting the slower movements of animals to invoke the aid of truth instead of imagination to direct their pencil, but with little encouragement from their critics; until recently, however, artists and critics alike have necessarily had to depend upon their observation alone to justify their conceptions or to support their theories.

Photography, at first regarded as a curiosity of science, was soon recognised as a most important factor in the search for truth, and its more popular use is now entirely subordinated by its value to the astronomer, the anatomist, the pathologist, and other investigators of the complex problems of nature. The artist, however, still hesitates to avail himself of the resources of what may be at least acknowledged as a handmaiden of art, if not admitted to its most exalted ranks.

Having devoted much attention in California to experiments in instantaneous photography, I, in 1872, at the suggestion of the editor of a San Francisco newspaper, obtained a few photographic impressions of a horse during a fast trot.

At this time much controversy prevailed among experienced hors.e.m.e.n as to whether all the feet of a horse while trotting were entirely clear of the ground at the same instant of time. A few experiments made in that year proved a fact which should have been self-evident.

Being much interested with the experiments of Professor Marey, in 1877 I invented a method for the employment of a number of photographic cameras, arranged in a line parallel to a track over which the animal would be caused to move, with the object of obtaining, at regulated intervals of time or distance, several consecutive impressions of him during a single complete stride as he pa.s.sed along in front of the cameras, and so of more completely investigating the successive att.i.tudes of animals while in motion than could be accomplished by the system of M. Marey.

I explained the plan of my intended experiments to a wealthy resident of San Francisco--Mr. Stanford--who liberally agreed to place the resources of his stock-breeding farm at my disposal, and to reimburse the expenses of my investigations, upon condition of my supplying him, for his private use, with a few copies of the contemplated results. The apparatus used and its arrangement will be better understood by a reference to the accompanying drawings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 1.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 2.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 3.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 4.]

Fig. 1. A photographing lens, and camera containing a sensitised plate; and side view of electro-exposor placed in front of camera.

Fig. 2. Back view of electro-exposor. Two shutters P P, each comprising two panels, with an opening O between them, are adjusted to move freely up and down in a frame; they are here arranged ready for an exposure, and are held in position by a latch L and trigger T, all light being excluded from the lens. A slight extra tension of the thread B, Fig. 4, will cause a contact of the metal springs M S, and complete a circuit of electricity through the wires W W and the electro-magnet M; the consequent attraction causes the armature A to strike the trigger, the latch is released, the shutters are drawn respectively upwards and downwards by means of the rubber springs S S, and light is admitted to the sensitised plate while the openings in the shutters are pa.s.sing each other in front of the lens.

Fig. 3. Front view of electro-exposor after exposure of the plate.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 5.]

Fig. 5. General view of studio, operating track, and background. In the studio are arranged 24 photographing cameras; at a distance of 12 inches from the centre of each lens an electro-exposor is securely fixed in front of each camera. Threads 12 inches apart are stretched across the track (only two of which are introduced in the engraving), at a suitable height to strike the breast of the animal experimented with, one end of the thread being fastened to the background, the other to the spring, Fig. 4, which is drawn almost to the point of contact.

The animal in its progress over the track will strike these threads in succession, and as each pair of springs is brought into contact, the current of electricity thereby created effects a photographic exposure, as described by Figs. 2 and 4; and each consecutive exposure records the position of the animal at the instant the thread is struck and broken.

For obtaining successive exposures of horses driven in vehicles, one of the wheels is steered in a channel over wires slightly elevated from the ground; the depression of each wire completes an electric circuit, and effects the exposures in the same manner as the threads.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 6.]

Fig. 6. Operating track, covered with corrugated indiarubber, and marked with transverse lines 12 inches apart. Each line is numbered, for the purpose of more readily ascertaining the length of the animal's stride.

On one side of the track, and opposite to the battery of cameras, a white background is erected at a suitable angle.

The camera in which any one negative in a series of exposures is made is designated on that negative by the parallel direction of the vertical stake with the horizontal line extending to the corresponding number immediately opposite. The discriminating number of each series is marked on each negative by the large numbers--229, for example--which are changed for each movement ill.u.s.trated.

For recording the successive att.i.tudes of animals not under control, an apparatus is used, comprising a cylinder, around which are spirally arranged a number of pins; upon the cylinder being set in motion through gearing connected with a spring or weight, these pins are consecutively brought into contact with a corresponding number of metal springs; a succession of electric currents are thereby created which act through their respective magnets attached to the electro-exposors at regulated intervals of time. The cylinder is put in motion either by bringing it into gearing with other parts of the apparatus already in motion; or by releasing a break with the hand, or by the action of some object at a distance by means of an electric current.

This apparatus is princ.i.p.ally used for ill.u.s.trating the flight of birds, the motions of small animals, and changes of position without continuous progressive motion, such as occur during wrestling or turning a summersault; when the cameras are directed towards the place where the movements are being executed.

The boxes outside the studio (Fig. 5) contain cameras and electro-exposors for obtaining synchronous exposures of a moving object from different points of view.

The following a.n.a.lyses of some of the movements investigated by the aid of electro-photographic exposures, are repeated by permission of the President and Council from a paper read by the author before the Royal Society, and are rendered more perfectly intelligible by the reproductions of the actual motions projected on a screen through the zoopraxiscope.

_The Walk._

Selecting the horse for the purposes of ill.u.s.tration, we find that during his slowest progressive movement--the walk--he has always two, and, for a varying period, three feet on the ground at once. With a fast walking horse the time of support upon three feet is exceedingly brief; while during a very slow walk all four feet are occasionally on the ground at the same instant.

The successive order of what may be termed foot fallings are these.

Commencing with the landing of the left hind foot, the next to strike the ground will be the left fore foot, followed in order by the right hind, and right fore foot. So far as the camera has revealed, these successive foot fallings during the walk are invariable, and are probably common to all quadrupeds. But the time during which each foot, in its relation to the other feet, remains on the ground, varies greatly with different species of animals, and even with the same animal under different conditions. During an ordinary walk, at the instant preceding the striking of the left hind foot, the body is supported on the right laterals, and the left fore foot is in act of pa.s.sing to the front of the right fore foot. The two hind feet and the right fore foot immediately divide the weight. The right hind foot is now raised, and the left hind with its diagonal fore foot sustains the body; the left fore next touches the ground and for an instant the animal is again on three feet; the right fore foot is immediately raised and again the support is derived from laterals--the left instead of as before the right. One half of the stride is now completed, and a similar series of alternations, subst.i.tuting the right feet for the left, completes the other half. These movements will perhaps be more readily understood by a reference to the longitudinal elevation, Fig. 7, No. 1, which ill.u.s.trates some approximate relative positions of the feet of a rapid walking horse, with a stride of 5 feet 9 inches. The positions of the feet indicated in this, and also in the other strides ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 7 are copied from photographs, and from them we learn that during an ordinary walk the consecutive supporting feet are:

1. The left hind and left fore--_laterals_.

2. Both hind, and left fore.

3. Right hind and left fore--_diagonals_.

4. Right hind and both fore.

5. Right hind and right fore--_laterals_.

6. Both hind, and right fore.

7. Left hind and right fore--_diagonals_.

8. Left hind and both fore.