Page:Territory in Bird Life by Henry Eliot Howard (London, John Murray edition).djvu/136

90 justified. I think, in hesitating to accept this view, and must look elsewhere for the real condition under which the pugnacious nature of the male is rendered susceptible to appropriate stimulation.

What then is the meaning of all this warfare? The process of reproduction is a complex one, built up of a number of different parts forming one inter-related whole; it is not merely a question of "battle," or of "territory," or of "song," or of "emotional manifestation," but of all these together. The fighting is thus one link in a chain of events whose end is the attainment of reproduction; it is a relationship in an inter-related process, and to speak of it as being even directly related to the territory is scarcely sufficient, for it is intimately associated with the disposition which is manifested in the isolation of the male from its companions, and forms therewith an imperium in imperio from which our concept of breeding territory is taken. But let me say at once that it is no easy matter to prove this, for since so many modes of behaviour, which can be interpreted as lending' support to this view, are likewise interpretable on the view that the presence of a female is a necessary condition of the fighting, it is difficult to find just the sort of evidence that is required. Nevertheless, after hearing the whole of the evidence and at the same time keeping in mind the conclusion which we have already reached. I venture to