610 VICTOR E. SHELFORD 
characters which enable them to live under a given set of condi- 
tions and the behavior which those conditions produce." 
It is to be hoped that geographic studies such as we have out- 
lined may be conducted on wild animals in connection with the 
geographic and psychological problems in man (Waxwieler, ’06). 
2. General biology and evolution. From the biological side 
alone, the more purely physiological problems present an inter- 
esting field which is sure to yield results of far-reaching impor- 
tance. The day is, I believe, rapidly approaching when the physi- 
ologist will find it necessary to give more attention to the study 
of animals unacclimated to the gases and artificial surroundings 
of the laboratory. Indeed, the failure of students of behavior 
to study their animals in nature is probably constantly leading 
to misinterpretation. 
It has not been my purpose to point out the relations of this 
subject to the evolution of species. However, to the question of 
the evolution of behavior characters, of instincts, ete., this point 
15 While attempting to make comparisons between human society and man on 
the one hand, and plants and animals on the other, geographers, sociologists, and 
psychologists—in so far as I have been able to read their writings along this line 
—have compared structure in plants and animals with what is obviously not struc- 
ture in man, namely, his culture and mental make up. Waxwieler compares 
human society with the whole animal kingdom as constituting another society. 
McGee (’96) takes a similar position. In discussing the relation of cultures to 
environment, he says: ‘‘When the law of biotic development is extended to man- 
kind, it appears to fail; for the men of the desert and shore land, mountain and 
plain, arctic and tropic, are ceaselessly occupied in strife against environmental 
conditions which transform their subhuman associates, yet men remain essentially 
unchanged, some taller, some stouter, some swifter of foot, some longer of life 
than others, yet all essentially Homo sapiens in every characteristic. 
More careful examination indicates that the failure of the law when extended 
to man is apparent only. The desert monads retain certain common physical 
characteristics, but develop arts of obtaining water and food, and these arts are 
adjusted to the local environment. ” Hecontinues with the citation of 
other cases. In the light of our present knowledge, such adjustment of arts is 
comparable only to the adjustment of wide ranging species of animals in food, 
nest building, materials used in nest building, and other features of ecology and 
behavior (see also Hubbard 796; Mason ’96). Goode (’04) called attention to the 
fact that physical changes in man are slow as compared with the changes in culture 
(see also W. S. Tower, 710). 
