Page:Territory in Bird Life by Henry Eliot Howard (London, John Murray edition).djvu/292

230 not only sociable, but, so there is reason to believe, are mutually helpful both in discovering the necessary means of subsistence which are often none too plentiful, and in affording protection from enemies, which, on the contrary, are often numerous. That the different units of which these flocks are composed should live on amicable terms is therefore as necessary for the welfare of the whole community at this particular season as that the different individuals of the same species should do so. But just as the sociable relations, which obtain between these individuals throughout the winter, undergo a marked change at the commencement of the breeding season, so, too, do different species, which habitually associate together, suddenly become hostile to one another. This change is coincident in time with the rise of the organic condition which leads to the establishment of territories; and the hostility continues, though in diminishing degree, throughout the breeding season, and dies away the following autumn.

For example, different Warblers resort to the elders {) in September, and there pass much time feeding on the fruit which is then ripe and often abundant. In the same bush there may be Blackcaps, Garden-Warblers, Whitethroats, and Lesser Whitethroats, some preening their feathers, others searching for the berries, others again, with feathers relaxed, making feeble attempts to sing. Occasionally there may be a scuffle, perhaps between a