Old science delights me. This delight springs not from its sediments of facts supporting our own efforts, but from the insights made (though not necessarily correct) with so little data on hand. In science, technical detail is the enemy of speculative maneuverability.
It is surprising the amount of work you can get done, with plenty of data on hand, grinding through models and analyses, without knowing anything about the organism you are studying. This summer I have started working on red deer (spp. Cervus elaphus L.). I have never seen a deer in Scotland (do they exist? like the unicorn, only as a name for a pub) yet I am in the position to discover new things about them.
Frank Fraser Darling did not have the luxury of other people’s data. He braved the climate of the Highlands to collect his own. He would find my work as distinctly removed from studying deer in their habitat as that of the laboratorista, even if my data happen to come from observations of wild animals. What I miss is any familiar appreciation of the whole organism in its environment.
*Many of Darling's conjectures are wrong. The copy in the university library is dutifully marked: 'no', 'no', 'NO!')
A Herd of Red Deer is a beautiful book. Standing apart from other ecologists, Darling considered seriously the psychology of a wild animal. Although it has resigned its duty as a primary source,* it makes for daring literature.