Page:Territory in Bird Life by Henry Eliot Howard (London, John Murray edition).djvu/308

240 requires for its functioning a stimulus of an appropriate kind, yet it is also true that the condition which will render it responsive must be present. What we have then to consider is whether the phenomena which we have explored give us any clue as to the particular nature of that condition. In the first place, we have the general fact that the hostility is not confined to a few species belonging to a few families, but that it is of wide application—birds of prey. Warblers. Woodpeckers, all supply us with evidence which serves to show, in greater or less degree, its nature and extent. Next, we found that the hostility was peculiar to a certain season—and that one the season of reproduction. And if the question were asked: What condition would then be most likely to render the instinct susceptible, the answer that would most certainly be given would be—^the presence of a female. And in reply to a further question as to the particular nature of the stimulus to which the instinct would respond, we should be told—the presence of another male of the same species. Now the possible influence of the female on the course of the male's behaviour was the subject of inquiry in the second chapter, wherein we endeavoured to explain the hostility between males of the same species, and we came to the conclusion that it was not alone sufficient to account for the facts disclosed. Still less likely, therefore, is it that her presence can bear any direct relation to the hostility