This term "came" to us from Greek and is translated as "temper, character, a habit, custom", and actually the ethology in a modern concept is the science studying life of animals in the habitat, natural to them, that is customs and "customs" of dumb animals.
Animals very well adapt in the surrounding natural world that occurs thanks to a variety of forms and mechanisms of their behavior. Scientists unite it in three groups: individual behavioural reactions (movement, search of food "for emergency", breath, dream, game, search of a shelter, etc.), reproductive (reproduction similar) and social. Be the focus of attention of ethology - practically all parties of behavior of representatives of fauna, but scientists show special interest to their instinctive and also to so-called social behavior, that is to their communications in communities. So, comparing habits of animal different populations, cultures and types, scientists reveal among them same and vidotselesoobrazny which are recognized as instinctive. And by means of various methods of observation the researchers try to find out communications in concrete community, for example, how the chicken recognizes the mother, and the bee informs the relatives on the location of a source rich with nectar? And what force forces birds to submit annually not one thousand kilometers and at the same time to adhere to strictly certain way?
Detailed stories about the behavior characteristic of a concrete look form the basis of special lists (etogramm) and are illustrated by the given filmings, tape recordings, timing and other objective methods of registration. The comparative analysis of these etogramm also forms the basis of studying all parties of evolution of behavior of animals.
For studying their life in the course of individual development of an organism of ethology use also laboratory methods, one of which consists in education of the animal isolated from influence of the external environment. And in conclusion it is a little about ethology of the person. As the scientific discipline it is rather young: time of its birth - the beginning of the 70th years of last century. This science can be treated as biology of human behavior because a subject of its study - a basis of formation of behavior of the person in two evolutionary processes from all directions opening laws of development of its mentality (onto- and phylogeny).