STIMULUS-CONTROL OF COPULATORY-BEHAVIOR IN SEXUALLY NAIVE MALE JAPANESE-QUAIL (COTURNIX JAPONICA) - EFFECTS OF TEST CONTEXT AND STIMULUS MOVEMENT

Sexually experienced male quail (Coturnix japonica) are more likely to engage in copulatory behavior than sexually naive ones. These experim ents suggest that sexual experience in a particular place may facilita te later copulatory responding because of increased familiarity with t he contextual cues of the environment. Male quail in Experiment 1 did not copulate reliably with taxidermic models of females in a novel con text, even though some of the subjects were allowed to copulate with f emale quail in their home cages. In contrast, sexually naive males in Experiments 2 and 3 copulated vigorously with taxidermic models of fem ales in a familiar context. In Experiment 4, sexually naive males test ed in an unfamiliar context were more likely to copulate with a moving than with a static model. The stimulus control of copulatory behavior in sexually naive male quail was similar to that in sexually experien ced ones but only in familiar contexts.