Abstract: Taking the Père David's deer (Elaphurus davidianus) as an example, I distinguished the terms “posture”, “act” and “behavior”. Behavior is defined as animal's movements with a defined posture plus certain acts within an ecological environment. Thus, by using the concept of "posture-act-environment”, I put forward the three element coding system for animal's behavior based on the three components of animal behavior. Suppose B, P, A and E are the sets representing studying animal's behavior, posture, act and environment, respectively. bi, pi, ai and ei are the elements or subset of the set B, P, A and E. Behavior bi is defined as : bi = pi∩ai∩ei ; pi ∈P ; ai ∈A ; ei∈EI thus established a functional behavioral classification and coding system for studying animal behavior. The coding system is called PAE coding system, which is based on the set theory and states the relationship among animal's posture, act and ecological environment, clarifies the confusion of posture, act and behavior in ethological and behavioral ecological studies, distinguishes the component s and structure of animal behavior. The PAE coding system opens a new domain for the behavioral research. In this study, I recorded 12 postures of the Père David's deer : “standing”, “rearing”, “kneeling down”, “sitting”, “lying”, “walking”, “running”, “jumping”, “swimming”, “head on clashing”, “mounting” and “nursing”. I also recorded 92 acts and 134 behaviors. I also gave out the relative frequency of each behavior in relation to sex and age, and the season in which the behavior is likely to be occurred.

Key words: Père David's deer (Elaphurus davidianus), Behavior, Posture, Act, Behavioral function

摘要： 以麋鹿为实例，通过辨识行为的基本单元，区别了“姿势”、“动作”和“环境”，分解了动物行为的层次，然后根据行为的适应和社群机能归类，建立了以“姿势—动作—环境”为轴心的，以生态功能为分类依据的动物行为分类编码系统（PAE编码分类系统）。PAE编码分类系统以集合论为基础，明确了动物行为的三要素：姿势、动作和生态环境之间的关系，避免了笼统地将动物的姿势、动作和行为混为一谈的做法，区分了动物行为的组成要素和结构层次。行为要素编码方法为动物行为学研究提供了一个新的生长点。在继承前人工作的基础上，记录了有关麋鹿的姿势、动作和行为达200多种，还区别了各种行为在雄性、雌性和幼体之间的相对发生频次以及发生季节。

关键词: 麋鹿, 行为, 姿势, 动作, 行为功能