Some Hints for Research in Animal Sociology

Abstract

A Glance at the names in the bibliography shows that animal sociology owes much to the work of ‘amateurs’. Selous, Howard, Portielje, to mention only a few workers whose contributions have done so much to develop this field, were and are no professional zoologists. As a matter of fact, official zoology has long left animal sociology alone, and the early work has all been done either by amateurs or by zoologists who had no training in this type of work at all. Both Heinroth and Huxley were, as animal sociologists, autodydacts when they wrote their pioneer contributions. Thanks to their work, and the subsequent work of Lorenz and his co-workers, interest is now rapidly growing among zoologists. This leads to a quicker development, and this again results in the introduction of new concepts and terms, and in a rapid growth of the literature. This certainly is encouraging, but it has the disadvantage that research becomes increasingly the monopoly of professional specialists. Many amateurs feel that they can no longer keep pace with it, let alone produce new and original contributions. I don’t think such pessimism is justified.