Influence of repeated exposure of male rats to oestrous odour on their subsequent sexual behaviour.

Adult and sexually naive male rats were individually, in repeated sessions, put into a box the floor of which had beforehand been scent-marked by oestrous females. The males of the control group were put into a box which had not been scent-marked. Although the males exposed to scent-marks showed, in two performed tests, significantly more precopulatory activities towards the passively receptive female, they were not able to initiating copulation with her. They initiated copulatory behaviour only in the test when their partner was a female exhibiting ritualized dartings.