Page:Territory in Bird Life by Henry Eliot Howard (London, John Murray edition).djvu/212

154 Are we then justified in the use of such terms as "warning," "significance," or even "meaning," when it is but a matter of stimulus and response? In what does the impulse to avoid other males consist? There is no reason to suppose that there is any sensation of fear in the first stage, and the course of behaviour demonstrates that there is none in the later stages. But it is difficult to conceive of an impulse which has, as its end, the isolation of the individual from members of its own sex and kind, without some feeling-tone, the reverse of pleasurable, entering into the situation; just as it is difficult to believe that the female experiences no pleasurable sensation when she hears the voice of the male that directs her search. So that the song may be actually repellent in the one case and attractive in the other; and it is none the less repellent when, as in the later stages, it attracts a neighbouring male, for the attraction is then of a different order, determined by the presence of the condition which renders the pugnacious nature susceptible and leads to attack. In a sense, therefore, we can speak of "meaning"—though not perhaps of "significance"—and of "warning," when we refer to the prospective value of the behaviour.

So much for the purpose of "song"; there still remains the more difficult question—the question of origin. Let me make clear what I mean by origin. As we have already seen, there is infinite diversity in the sexual voice