THE SCOPE OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY 5 



of fur supplies in the Canadian forests and in Arctic 

 regions, periodic plagues of cockchafers in Europe, 

 conservation of game animals in North America and 

 in Africa, the biological control (by means of insects) 

 of introduced plants such as prickly pear and St, 

 John's wort in Australia, of gorse and bramble in 

 New Zealand, and of Lantana in Hawaii, the effects 

 of various factors on the increase of blowflies attack- 

 ing sheep in Australia, the legions of agricultural and 

 forestry pests such as the codling moth, the pear 

 slug, the cotton boll weevil, the gypsy moth, and 

 many more. 



Although these practical problems undoubtedly 

 provide one of the strongest and most urgent reasons 

 for developing principles in animal ecology, there are 

 also important points of contact with general studies 

 on evolution and species formation, with psychological 

 theories, while at the same time the exact study of 

 wild animal communities offers in itself a very ade- 

 quate intellectual reward to the investigator. 



The central organization for the study both of 

 plant and animal ecology in the British Isles is the 

 British Ecological Society, which publishes the 

 Journal of Ecology and also a more specialized 

 Journal of Animal Ecology. In the United States 

 there is the Ecological Society of Americf. which 

 publishes Ecology, and Ecological Mcmcgraphs, the 

 latter for larger studies. Oikos is an international 

 journal published in Scandinavia. On the continent 

 of Europe papers are mainly published in general 

 biological journals. Oikos is a most useful periodical 

 concerned with all branches of animal ecology with 

 papers more especially from countries round the 

 Baltic. Apart from this there are several important 

 publications devoted to aquatic biology, both fresh- 

 water and marine, including Hydrohiologia, and Archiv. 



The problem of keeping pace with the literature 

 of animal ecology is a serious one, since much wcwk 



