VII 



SMELL— FIELDWORK AND EXPERIMENTS 



Readers may have already noticed that what are usually 

 termed "laboratory experiments" have hardly been men- 

 tioned. This is because I feel very strongly that nearly as 

 much can be learned by observation in the field, and also 

 by tests in captivity where the natural conditions of the 

 animals concerned are reproduced as faithfully as possible. 

 I fully realize that laboratory experiments are necessary for 

 certain kinds of research, but none the less very valuable 

 information can be gained without specially contrived cages 

 and apparatus, so long as the student is well versed in the 

 general natural history of the species being studied. 



With all due respect to those who deal mostly with 

 laboratory work, I think that wrong conclusions may at 

 times be reached due to a lack of knowledge of the animals 

 in the wild. Many scientists have stated that work on captive 

 animals is suspect because the living conditions of such 

 animals are so different from those in nature. This is true 

 to some extent, but if the investigator knows the basic habits, 

 requirements and behaviour of creatures in their natural 

 habitats, there will be far less risk of error when dealing 

 with animals in captivity. On the whole, captive animals 

 will display their normal basic behaviour, but it is vital that 

 this basic behaviour be at least roughly known to the experi- 

 menter. If this is not so, then the interpretation of the behaviour 

 of a captive animal will be at fault. It is not so much the 

 fact that an animal in a cage will behave in a markedly 

 different way ; it may be that certain actions are carried out 

 in abnormal surroundings in such a manner that they are 

 not recognized as being normal due to the fact that limita- 

 tions of space or accommodation force the animal to perform 

 a perfectly natural function or piece of behaviour in an 



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