THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



flockings, their rivalries, eluding their enemies, 

 hunting their prey, their social instincts, their co- 

 operation, in fact, all their relations with one 

 another, and with their natural environment, 

 from all this the indoor investigator is cut off; only 

 the stimulus of food or the fear of punishment re- 

 mains for him to work upon. His animals act only 

 under the incentive of appetite. The greater the 

 hunger, the greater the wit. The experimenters at 

 times starve their subjects till they become abnor- 

 mally eager and active. The food question certainly 

 enters very largely into an animal's life, and its re- 

 sourcefulness in obtaining food may well serve as 

 one measure of its intelligence. But it has other 

 life-problems, several of them, which are just as im- 

 portant, and about which it is just as keen, but which 

 the experimenter cannot bring to bear. His labora- 

 tory is too narrow a field for these activities, as is 

 even the large zoological park. He cannot study the 

 migratory instinct, the flocking or herding or hunting 

 instinct, nor, with the wild creatures, the mating and 

 breeding instinct. He can throw no light on an ani- 

 mal's life-habits. He can find out how it will act 

 under given strange conditions, but not how it be- 

 haves under its natural conditions. Hence the 

 little interest the natural-historians feel in his infer- 

 ences and conclusions. 



It is true that the laboratory student of animal 

 psychology can reach his results more rapidly than 

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