Page:Territory in Bird Life by Henry Eliot Howard (London, John Murray edition).djvu/250

192 been first insured? How could the supply of food have been insured if numbers of the same species had been allowed to breed in close proximity?

From the foregoing facts it is clear that the young of many species are at birth susceptible to cold and unable to withstand prolonged exposure. The parents must therefore be in a position to obtain food rapidly, and consequently it is important that there should be an ample supply in the vicinity of the nest. This end the territory certainly serves to promote; it roughly insures that the bird population of a given area is in proportion to the available means of subsistence, and it thus reduces the risk of prolonged exposure to which the young are always liable.

This leads on to a consideration of those cases in which the question of securing food is subordinate to the question of securing a station suitable for reproduction.

I take the Guillemot as an example. In principle its behaviour is similar to that of the Bunting; the male repairs to a definite place, isolates itself, and becomes pugnacious. But the Guillemot is generally surrounded by other Guillemots, and the birds are often so densely packed along the ledges that there is scarcely standing room, so it seems, for all of them. Nevertheless the isolation of the individual is, in a sense, just as complete as that of the individual Bunting, for each one is just as