THE EMERGENCE OF BEHAVIOUR

Abstract

When King Solomon the Wise used those famous words “Go to the ant, thou sluggard!” he couldn't have known how lazy ants really are, but he was plainly recommending the study of insect behaviour and letting it be known he was a bit of a student himself, nearly 3,000 years ago. Man's interest in the behaviour of insects is indeed ancient and from the scientific point of view, that is a mixed blessing. For it has the corollary that behaviour is something that everyone, the entomologist included, has tended to take in his stride; something fascinating and even baffling at times, but still a study more like play than work, that did not seem to demand the sort of critical, analytical labour, or rigorous evidence demanded by, say, taxonomy or toxicology. Copyright © 1972, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved