Page:Territory in Bird Life by Henry Eliot Howard (London, John Murray edition).djvu/326

258 whether the battle be fierce or so trivial as to appear to us to be more in the nature of "play," so long as some change in the relative prospects of the opponents is the result.

For us, then, the main consideration lies in the question: Is the behaviour serviceable now in furthering the life of the individual? Whether the evidence which we have examined affords sufficient ground for the belief that the hostility is genuine and has a part to play in the whole scheme of reproduction, each must judge for himself.