L’univers du goéland argenté (Larus argentatus)

Successively, Tinbergen and his Leiden research group between 1935 and 1949, and Baerends and Drent's Groningen research group for twelve breeding seasons between 1951 and l974 have focused on the Herring Gull as an ideal species allowing to test experimentally in the field the validity of traditional concepts of the lorenzian ethology, e.g. the IRM concept. Baerends and Drent improved the experimental principles initiated by Tinbergen and developed very precise ways to identify the cues really used by birds to recognize their eggs. Therefore, they submitted the birds to test choice procedures with pairs of artificial egg models or dummies ; they analyzed how the birds treat and use the informations to which they have access through their sense organs. Strict test procedures, critical analysis of results, efforts of modelization in order to clarify what is in work in that blind box bird pin points this research as a classic and a mile stone in the developement of ethology as a science. The reviewer hopes that this evocation will incite some readers to go back to the original papers, in order to understand how a science goes on.