Page:Territory in Bird Life by Henry Eliot Howard (London, John Murray edition).djvu/313

Rh 8.5 square yards in the space allotted to each individual. The pressure of the bird population upon the means of support would then have been materially increased; and not only the Buntings, but the Warblers. Pipits, and all the rest would have suffered. But the result would have been the same if, instead of the four additional male Reed-Buntings, four males of other kinds had been allowed to enter the marsh, and we can multiply the number four until we arrive at a point when the means of subsistence would no longer have been adequate for the adults, still less for the young. If, then, there were nothing to prevent this happening, many of the birds in that marsh would have no chance of rearing their young successfully. Hence, if the territory is adequately to serve the purpose for which we believe it has been evolved, some provision must have been included in the system to meet the difficulty.

There are three ways by which this may have been accomplished—indirectly, by increasing the size of the area occupied by each individual, and thereby reducing the relative number of each species; or directly, by rendering the fighting instinct of the bird susceptible to stimulation by individuals of other species; or, possibly, by a combination of the two. There were four pairs of Reed-Buntings in the marsh, and their territories covered the whole of it. But inasmuch as other insectivorous birds were established there also, and found sufficient food