Page:Territory in Bird Life by Henry Eliot Howard (London, John Murray edition).djvu/270

212 forms a habit which compels it to remain within more or less well-defined boundaries. But the actual distance that it traverses on the occasion of its first attempt must be determined by the relative abundance or scarcity of the particular kind of insect life which it requires. So that, although habit defines and in some measure helps to determine the boundaries of the territory, it is clear that in the last resort they must depend upon the nature of the conditions in the external environment.

We have, then, the congenital basis which leads to the occupation of a position, and to the enmity shown by the owner of the position towards other individuals; and this congenital basis is found alike in many widely divergent forms, living under equally widely divergent conditions; we have acquired accommodation; and we have relationships in the organic and inorganic world—and the outcome of it all is a system of behaviour which we, who can perceive the end to which such behaviour is tending, are justified in speaking of as "a disposition to secure a territory." In the development of this system a primary value must be ascribed to the conditions in the external environment, for they determine the direction of the variations of instinctive procedure and of acquired habit which work towards the same goal—that of adjustment to the conditions of life.