Page:Territory in Bird Life by Henry Eliot Howard (London, John Murray edition).djvu/32

10 to a particular environment, is an important factor in the situation. For example, if instead of resting content with just a bare position sufficient for the purpose of reproduction, the Guillemot were to hustle its neighbours from adjoining ledges, the Guillemot as a species would probably disappear; or if instead of securing an area capable of supplying sufficient food both for itself and its young, the Chiffchaff were to confine itself to a single tree, and, after the manner of the Guillemot, trust to spasmodic excursions into neutral ground for the purpose of obtaining food, the Chiffchaff as a species would probably not endure. All such adjustments have, however, been brought about by relationships which have gradually become interwoven in the tissue of the race.

The intolerance that the male displays towards other individuals, usually of the same sex, leads to a vast amount of strife. Nowhere in the animal world are conflicts more frequent, more prolonged, and more determined than in the sexual life of birds; and though they are acknowledged to be an important factor in the life of the individual, yet there is much difference of opinion as to the exact position they occupy in the drama of bird life. Partly because they frequently happen to be in evidence, partly because they are numerically inferior, and partly. I suppose, because the competition thus created would be a means of maintaining efficiency, the females, by common consent, are supposed to supply the condition