360 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [June, 



while in confinement. If kept in a room they hide behind furniture 

 and remain motionless for hours and almost days. When put in 

 aquatic enclosures they immediately bury themselves in the mud 

 and seem to remain there for months. Nothing will induce them to 

 eat or to take any interest in their surroundings. If caught while 

 making their nest, they are sometimes forced to lay the eggs, but 

 never make a nest in confinement. The eggs are simply dropped 

 about on land or in the water, and are usually crushed when found. 

 None of their normal characteristics are in evidence, and it would be 

 a waste of time to attempt to draw conclusions about their disposi- 

 tion or intelligence from their actions in captivity." 96 



Prof. Charles W. Hargitt makes a similar but more general criticism 

 of the experimental method of studying animal behavior, as follows : 

 "I have made the field work emphatic whenever at all practicable. 

 I have elsewhere 97 emphasized the crying need for larger attention 

 to this phase of experimental work, believing that in many cases 

 it is all but impossible to secure trustworthy results as to behavior 

 of animals where the work has been done under such unusual, un- 

 natural, and artificial conditions as most laboratory provisions afford. 



"What right has one to assume that the actions of an animal taken 

 rudely from its natural habitat and as rudely imprisoned in some 

 improvised cage are in any scientific sense -an expression of its normal 

 behavior, either physical or psychical? Is it within the range of the 

 calculus of probability that conclusions drawn from observations 

 made upon an animal in the shallow confines of a finger-bowl, but 

 whose habitat has been the open sea, are wholly trustworthy? It is 

 no part of my purpose to discredit the laboratory or laboratory 

 appliances as related to such investigations. They are indispensable. 

 But at the same time let it be recognized that they are at best but 

 artificial makeshifts whose values, unless checked up by constant 

 appeal to nature, must be taken at something of a discount. This 

 must be especially the case with higher organisms. Some of these 

 may, of course", be readily domesticated, or made more or less at 

 home in aquaria or vivaria; but not a few absolutely fret their 

 lives out, are never at ease, and probably never give expression to a 

 natural reaction under such conditions. It seems to the writer 

 until one has been able to place his specimens under conditions 



labits of Certain Tortoises," Journ. of Compar. Neurology and 

 Psychol, XVI, 2, March, 1906, pp. 126, 127, and 135. 



Observations on the Behavior of Tubicolous Annelids," Journ. Exp.Zool., 

 Vol. 7, 1909, p. 157. 



