Received 16 March 1963

Ethology, the term now widely in use in the English speaking world for the branch of science called in Germany „Vergleichende Verhaltensforschung” or “Tierpsychologie” is perhaps defined most easily in historical terms, viz. as the type of behaviour study which was given a strong impetus, and was made “respectable”, by Konrad Lorenz. Lorenz himself was greatly influenced by Charles Otis Whitman and Oskar Heinroth — in fact, when Lorenz was asked at an international interdisciplinary conference in 1955 how he would define Ethology, he said: “The branch of research started by Oskar Heinroth” (1955, p. 77). Although it is only fair to point out that certain aspects of modern Ethology were already adumbrated in the work of men such as Huxley (1914, 1923) and Verwey (1930), these historical statements are both correct as far as they go. However, they do not tell us much about the nature of Ethology. In this paper I wish to attempt an evaluation of the present scope of our science and, in addition, to try and formulate what exactly it is that makes us consider Lorenz “the father of modern Ethology”. Such an attempt seems to me worthwhile for several reasons: there is no consistent “public image” of Ethology among outsiders; and worse: ethologists themselves differ widely in their opinions of what their science is about.