Page:Territory in Bird Life by Henry Eliot Howard (London, John Murray edition).djvu/154

104 ship between intolerance and the territory on the one hand, and friendship and the neutral ground on the other, is just as strong a feature as it is in the behaviour of the Lapwing.

I shall now give a brief account of the conduct of a male Reed-Bunting which by persistent effort established itself late in the season, and I shall do so because its behaviour tends to confirm much that has been said in the preceding pages.

Early in March three male Reed-Buntings occupied a small water meadow overgrown with the common rush, and by the third week all of them were paired. On the 30th March two of the males were unusually pugnacious, and on the following day fighting continued and at times was very severe. Now I knew that the occupants of the ground in which the fighting was taking place were paired, and not doubting that the combatants were the owners of two territories marked for convenience sake Nos. 1 and 2. I was at a loss to understand the meaning of so determined and persistent a struggle. My attention, however, was presently drawn to a third bird, which also joined in the conflict and made the whole situation still more perplexing. This bird, as it soon became clear, was none other than the owner of No. 2 territory, and the one that I had previously regarded as such was a new arrival. On the following day, the 1st April, fighting continued, and in my record for that