ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 
“ CHAPTER I 
ORGANIC BEHAVIOUR 
J.— BEHAVIOUR IN GENERAL 
We commonly use the word “behaviour” with a wide range 
of meaning. We speak of the behaviour of troops in the 
field, of the prisoner at the bar, of a dandy in the ball-room. 
But the chemist and the physicist often speak of the behaviour 
of atoms and molecules, or that of a gas under changing con- 
ditions of temperature and pressure. The geologist tells us 
that a glacier behaves in many respects like a river, and 
discusses how the crust of the earth behaves under the stresses 
to which it is subjected. Weather-wise people comment on 
the behaviour of the mercury in a barometer as a storm 
approaches. Instances of a similar usage need not be multi- 
plied. Frequently employed with a moral significance, the 
word is at least occasionally used in a wider and more compre- 
hensive sense. When Mary, the nurse, returns with the little 
Miss Smiths from Master Brown’s birthday party, she is 
narrowly questioned as to their behaviour ; but meanwhile 
their father, the professor, has been discoursing 'to his students 
on the behaviour of iron filings in the magnetic field ; and his 
son Jack, of H.M.S. Blunderer, entertains his elder sisters 
with a graphic description of the behaviour of a first-class 
battle-ship in a heavy sea. 
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