Behaviour in animals and humans

Ant swarm, coin 32 mm across.

Not all social animals are social with the same degree of commitment.
— Lewis Thomas (1913 – ), The Lives of a Cell, Penguin Books, 1978.

 

That which is not good for the beehive cannot be good for the bees.
— Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121 – 180), Meditations.

 

A curious case has been given by Prof. Möbius, of a pike, separated by a plate of glass from an adjoining aquarium stocked with fish, and who often dashed himself with such violence against the glass in trying to catch the other fishes, that he was sometimes completely stunned. The pike went on thus for three months, but at last learned caution, and ceased to do so. The plate of glass was then removed, but the pike would not attack these particular fishes, though he would devour others which were afterwards introduced; so strongly was the idea of a violent shock associated in his feeble mind with the attempt on his former neighbours.

— Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, second edition, John Murray, 1885.

 There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: the way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock …

— Holy Bible, Proverbs, 30:18-19.

 

Animals studied by Americans rush about frantically, with an incredible display of bustle and pep, and at last achieve the desired result by chance. Animals studied by Germans sit still and think, and at last evolve the solution out of their inner consciousness.
— Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970).

 

The writer found that certain freshwater crustaceans, namely Californian species of Daphnia, copepods, and Gammarus when indifferent to light can be made intensely positively heliotropic by adding some acid to the fresh water, especially the weak acid CO₂. When carbonated water (or beer) to the extent of about 5 c.c. or 10 c.c. is slowly and carefully added to 50 c.c. of fresh water containing these Daphnia, the animals will become intensely positive and will collect in a dense cluster on the window side of the dish. Stronger acids act in the same way but the animals are likely to die quickly… Alcohols act in the same way. In the case of Gammarus the positive heliotropism lasts only a few seconds, while in Daphnia it lasts from 10 to 50 minutes and can be renewed by the further careful addition of some CO₂.
— Jacques Loeb (1859 – 1924), Forced Movements, Tropisms, & Animal Conduct, Dover edition of 1973, pp. 113 – 114.

Every family has a skeleton in the cupboard.
— Proverb.

If I were a Queensland giant
With great big smelly feet,
I’d stomp on a Queensland cane-toad
And make my feet smell sweet.
— Duncan Bain (pseud.) (1944 – ) ‘Cane toed’, from Tad to Telegraph: a history of the Poles, Anura Books, 1983.

 

It has been the signal merit of the English school of psychology, from Sir Francis Galton onwards, that it has, by this very device of mathematical analysis, transformed the mental test from a discredited dodge of the charlatan into a recognized instrument of scientific precision.
— Sir Cyril Lodowic Burt (1883 – 1971), Mental and Scholastic Tests, 1921, quoted in Stephen Jay Gould (1941 – 2002), The Mismeasure of Man, 234.

 

In an instant, he recognised the European as none other than Dr Livingstone himself; and he was about to rush forward and embrace him, when the thought occurred he was in the presence of Arabs, who, being accustomed to conceal their feelings, were very likely to found their estimate of a man upon the manner in which he conceals his own. A dignified Arab chieftain stood by, and this confirmed Mr Stanley in his resolution to show no symptoms of his own rejoicing or excitement. Slowly advancing towards the great traveller, he bowed and said “Dr Livingstone, I presume?” to which address the latter, who was fully equal to the occasion, simply smiled and replied “Yes”. It was not till some hours afterwards, when alone together, seated on a goat skin, that the two white men exchanged those congratulations which both were eager to express, and recounted their respective difficulties and adventures.
— Sir Henry Morton Stanley (1841 – 1904), Nature 6, 184, 1872, reprinted in Gratzer, A Bedside Nature, 30.

 

A new reflex is formed inevitably under a given set of conditions, and with the greatest ease, so that there is no need to take the subjective states of the dog into consideration. With a complete understanding of all the factors involved, the new signalizing reflexes are under the absolute control of the experimenter; they proceed according to as rigid laws as do any other physiological processes, and must be regarded as being in every sense a part of the physiological activity of living beings. I have termed this new group of reflexes conditioned reflexes to distinguish them from the inborn or unconditioned reflexes… Of course the terms “conditioned” and “unconditioned” could be replaced by others of arguably equal merit. Thus, for example, we might retain the term “inborn reflexes”, and call the new type “acquired reflexes”; or call the former “species reflexes” since they are characteristic of the species, and the latter “individual reflexes” since they vary from animal to animal in a species and even in the same animal at different times and under different conditions.
— Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849 – 1936), Conditioned Reflexes, Dover 1960, 25.

 

Social chaos is hell for the family and for those who have destroyed the family as well.
— Bhagavad Gita, 1:43, in the translation of Eknath Easwaran, Arkana Books, 1985.

 

You must consider a termitary as a single animal, whose organs have not yet been fused together as in a human being. Some of the termites form the mouth and digestive system; others take the place of weapons of defence like claws or horns; others form the generative organs.
— Eugène Marais (1871 – 1936), The Soul of the White Ant, chapter 1.

When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.
— W. H. Auden (1907 – ), ‘The Poet and the City’, in The Dyer’s Hand, Faber, 1963, 81.

 

Not only was 1906 a watershed in the history of broadcasting, it was also the year in which de Forest married Miss Lucille Sheardown, after the first ‘radio courtship’ in history. He had installed a wireless apparatus in her home, and being a shy young man, he proposed from a safe distance through the instrument. He was accepted in the same way. Unfortunately the distance which separated the couple at the proposal seems never to have been overcome, because the following year, the marriage was annulled!
— Geoffrey Maslen, ‘Magic lamp of radio’, New Scientist, 30 August, 1973, 496

 

The great English poet Tennyson is exposed to great annoyance from the curiosity of intruders. Strangers are found from time to time seated in his garden; peering in at his windows, wandering freely through his grounds. From the lawn in front, when conversing with his family in assumed privacy, he has, on casually looking up, discovered an enterprising British tourist taking mental notes of his conversation from the branches of a tree above. Mr Tennyson has been compelled to make fences, raise embankments, train foliage, and in fact half fortify his house, and in spite of all is not permitted to enjoy what any of our readers so circumstanced would expect to enjoy as a thing of course—the quiet freedom of a country home.
— Scientific American, 21 May 1864, 325.

 

I am very much obliged to you for sending me cards for your parties, but I am afraid of accepting them, for I should meet some people there, to whom I have sworn by all the saints in Heaven, I never go out, & should, therefore, be ashamed to meet them.
— Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882), letter to Charles Babbage, 1838.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured and far away.
— Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862).