Page:Territory in Bird Life by Henry Eliot Howard (London, John Murray edition).djvu/174

116 one another's influence quite as readily as the adjoining males and females, what would be the result? The emotional tone of the central pair would stand at a lower level of intensity; and, since their congenital dispositions would lack the necessary reinforcement, the birds would tend to become less and less punctilious in keeping their boundaries intact, whereas the adjoining pairs, always on the alert and meeting with little opposition, would encroach more and more and gradually extend their dominion. And so, by the time the young were hatched, the parents would be in occupation of an area too limited in extent to insure the necessarily rapid supply of food, and would be compelled to intrude upon the adjoining ground. But knowing how routine becomes ingrained in the life of the individual, knowing that for weeks this pair had submitted to their neighbours, can we believe that they would be capable of asserting their authority and that the young would be properly cared for? Or suppose that different pairs of Kittiwake Gulls on the crowded ledges, or different pairs of Puffins in the crowded burrows, varied in like manner, would they all have equal chances of rearing their offspring? The struggle for reproduction is nowhere more severe than amongst the cliff-breeding sea birds; it is not for nothing that one sees Kittiwake Gulls, locked together, fall into the water hundreds of feet below and struggle to the point of exhaustion, or, as has been reported, to the point of death; it is not for nothing that Puffins fight