The Oxford Companion to Animal Behavior

680 Pages·1982·103.67 MB·English

by  David McFarland [ed]

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THE
OXFORD COMPANION TO
ANIMAL BEHAVIOR
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The
Companion
Oxford to
Animal Behavior
Edited by
DAVID McFARLAND
Fellow ofBalliol College. Reader in Animal Behaviour.
andHeadofAnimal Behaviour Research Group.
Department ofZoology. Oxford University
Foreword by
NIKO TINBERGEN, F.R.S.
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Oxford New York
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1982
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t Oxford University Press 1981
LibraryofCongress CatalogCard Number: 82-80431
ISBN 0-19-866120-7
987654321
Printing(lastdigit):
Printed inthe United States ofAmerica
—
FOREWORD
Biologists of my generation still remember the times when the study of animal
behaviour was not yet really accepted as a part of modern science, and was
practised by no more than a handful ofindividuals, who indulged in it either as
a hobby or as a sideline to their 'real' work. Professional psychologists had
begun to study at least a few animals (an influential textbook ofthose times was
dedicated to 'Rattus norvegicus albinus'), but they did so less with the aim of
understanding animal behaviour for its own sake than for the purpose of
understandinghuman behaviour, forwhich they had selected 'subhuman' species
to serve as models, or at best as evolutionary 'precursors' of our own species.
Although Darwin was a brilliant student of animal and even of human be-
haviour, his great contribution to our understanding ofevolution channelled the
efforts of the next generations of zoologists into the study of animal structure,
and Taxonomy and Comparative Anatomy weremuch more important branches
of Zoology than comparative behaviour studies. For a long time, live animals
were understood much better by those who hunted or farmed them, or who
kept them as pets, than by those who tried to understand them scientifically.
It has been a stroke ofgreat good fortune, and an exhilarating experience for
my contemporaries and myselfto have grown upjust at the time when the scene
changed, one could almost say overnight, and the study of animal behaviour
became an acceptable and soon even a respectable branch ofZoology (although
for many years budgets did not reflect this new status). What happened in the
late twenties and the early thirties was that, notably in Central and Western
Europe, research on the behaviour of animals in their natural or near-natural
envir—onment was started in earnest by a few exceptionally committed indivi-
duals some would call them possessed, others inspired; they were certainly
stubbornly concentrating on their subjects rather than on a scientific career
and that the reports oftheir work, accepted for publication by learnedjournals,
encouraged a growing number ofyoung zoologists to follow their lead (why this
revival happened in Europe and why among zoologists rather than among psy-
chologists are still interesting and unsolved problems for the historians of our
science).
In the ten years or so before the outbreak of World War II this growing
interest expressed itself in the creation of a few minor university posts and in
the flocking of enthusiastic and gifted students to the few teachers occupying
them. Aft—er the war we saw the emergence ofwhat we can now call Comparative
Ethology still in my view the best name for what is now a recognized branch
of the Life Sciences; indeed this field became an area of exceptionally
vigorous growth.
Two aspects ofthis truly explosive development have been particularly strik-
—
ing. Inevitably, it has led to growing specialization on problems; on animal
—
FOREWORD
vi
groups or even species; on methods and techniqu—es. But Ethology has avoided
the narrowness thatcharacterized fordecades the fora time most prestigious
branch ofZoology called Comparative Anatomy, where in my student years the
finding of homologies was still the main aim, and the ways in which the many
painstakingly studied structures were used by the live animal were almost totally
disregarded ('Functional Anatomy' developed much later). Behaviour students
rebelled against following such a narrow course, and also against the prevalent
concentration on the pickled and dried carcasses ofanimals. They aimed almost
from the start at understanding the work of, and collaborating with, a variety of
colleagues: with the many kinds ofpsychologists; with physiologists who studied
the functions ofsense organs, ofthe nervous system, and ofthe skeleto-muscular
'effector' system; with ecologists and students ofevolution; and later with those
working on engineering problems and information science; with human sociolo-
gists, and with many other workers in neighbouring fields.
As a consequence, the study of animal (and human) behaviour has now
become a vast cooperative effort, in which both specialization and collaboration
with related sciences have their parts to play. The resulting progress is fascinat-
ing, but it also takes one's breath away. One feels, if I may use a romantic
metaphor, as if one is trying to keep up with a team of canoeists, who are
steering their way in fast-running, turbulent water, using the current and avoid-
ing wild waves and dangerous rocks, alternately being submerged and coming
up to gasp for air, and in great danger of losing touc—h with the other t—eam
members, ofbeing drowned, or ofbeing washed ashore an 'also paddled' at
the fringe of a quiet eddy.
In this situation it seems to me premature and notconducive to further growth
toclaim, as some havedone, thatComparative Ethology is now a mature science
and that we arejustified in thinking that we are already attaining a synthesis. In
my opinion Ethology is, fortunately, still in very turbulent water, and ethologists
have a feeling of being very much in the thick of it. This feeling, I imagine, is
what has motivated David McFarland and his large team ofable collaborators.
Their book seems to express the view that, in the struggle to find their way in
this wild water, it helps to pause for a moment in a quiet pool, not only to take
stock ofhow far they have got, but also to try and see more clearly where to go
next. This is obviously what they are doing here, and equally obviously they are
looking forward to very exciting and challenging tasks ahead. The best I can
wish for this splendid Oxford Companion to Animal Behaviour is to repeat what
I wrote myself, in a rather over-confidently written precursor published some
thirty years ago (using a phrase that would, with the addition ofonly one word,
apply here too): '. . . that it should lead to [still] better presentations in the near
future'.
NiKO TiNBERGEN, F.R.S.