: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.’’* 
Prof. Charles W. Hargitt makes a similar but more general criticism 
-of the experimental method of studying animal behavior, as follows: 
‘“T have made the field work emphatic whenever at all practicable. 
I have elsewhere” 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 
% The Habits 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. 
