1912.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 359 



hibits completely the fulness and variety of an organism's activities 

 than prison life and fear." 



In groups as low even as the Amphibia behavior in confinement 

 is far from natural. Prof. C. 0. Whitman found that Necturus 

 ordinarily refused food in captivity on account of its extreme timid- 

 ity. He says: 95 "The first adults which I kept in captivity in a 

 large aquarium refused to eat pieces of raw beef or small fish, whether 

 dead or alive. For months they went on, seeming entirely indifferent 

 to any proffered food, not paying the least attention, so far as I 

 noticed, to tempting morsels dropped quietly in front of them or 

 held in suspension before them. Living earthworms and insect 

 larvae were presented to them, all of which were known to be palatable 

 to the creature in its natural habitat; but nothing availed to draw 

 attention or elicit any evidence of hunger. Quiet and wholly indif- 

 ferent in outward behavior, yet the animals were actually starving 

 or wasting away." 



Many snakes will not take food in captivity, and it is therefore 

 necessary to force food down their throats to prevent death from 

 starvation. Captivity greatly modifies the behavior of some other 

 reptiles also, as is well stated in the following quotation from H. H. 

 Newman: "In order to understand an animal one must live with 

 it, must spend long hours, quiet days, in thoughtful observation of 

 it, as it pursues its daily round of occupations. This I have had an 

 opportunity of doing, and I now feel that I have a really personal 

 acquaintance with at least five species of tortoises 



"Studies of this sort should, I believe, precede experimental 

 studies, for sometimes shyness or weariness might be mistaken for 

 stupidity, and sullenness for sluggishness in reaction. As a rule, 

 the more highly organized and alert species of tortoises display, 

 when in captivity, the greatest degree of sullenness, and hence their 

 actions in confinement very poorly represent their true character. 

 The species, on the other hand, that are less highly organized are 



the species that act more nearly normally when in captivity 



Captivity inhibits normal activity in nearly all tortoises; conse- 

 quently I abandoned at an early stage of my work the observation 

 of specimens in confinement and devoted myself to long-continued, 

 and at times tedious, observation of the various species as they live 

 in their active environment 



"Extreme sullenness characterizes the behavior of Aspidonectes 



95 Biol. Lectures, 1898 (1899), pp. 295, 296. 



