Ethology also the discontinuance of undesirable behaviours. The term "ethology" derives from the Greek language: ἦθος, "ethos" meaning "character" and , "-logia" meaning "the study of". The term was first popularized by American myrmecologist (a person who studies ants) William Morton Wheeler in 1902. Because ethology is considered a topic of biology, ethologists have been concerned particularly with the evolution of behaviour and its understanding in terms of natural selection. In one sense, the first modern ethologist was Charles Darwin, whose 1872 book "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals" influenced many ethologists. He pursued his interest in behaviour
The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication grown too long, & I think I shall publish separately a very small volume, 'an essay on the origin of mankind'". This "essay" would become two books: "The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex" (1871) and "The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals" (1872). The book had been advertised as early as 1865 with the unwieldy title "Domesticated Animals and Cultivated Plants, or the Principles of Variation, Inheritance, Reversion, Crossing, Interbreeding, and Selection under Domestication" but Darwin agreed to the shorter "The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication" suggested by the compositors. By May he