Page:Territory in Bird Life by Henry Eliot Howard (London, John Murray edition).djvu/335

Rh of Waders roam about the tidal estuaries in search of food, and different kinds of Gulls assemble there and preen their feathers or sleep; Warblers alter their mode of life, and in the osier bed, or amongst the elders, seek their food together in peace; Finches, Buntings, Pipits, and Wagtails, though food is everywhere abundant, gather themselves together respectively into bands which, as winter approaches, grow into flocks and even into composite flocks; and as the Warblers leave for the south, so their places are filled by flocks of Thrushes and Finches from the north. In whatever direction we turn, when the days begin to shorten, it is the community, not the individual, that thrusts itself upon our attention; and throughout the winter continues to be the outstanding feature of bird life.

With the approach of the breeding season we witness that remarkable change which I have endeavoured to make clear in the previous chapters—the disintegration of the flock and the reinstatement of the individual. Instead of continuing with the flock, the individual now goes forth to seek the appropriate breeding ground; and having arrived there, is not only content to remain in isolation, but so behaves that isolation is insured. Intolerant of the approach of a stranger, intolerant even of the approach of the very members of the community whose companionship was previously welcomed, it not only fights to maintain the position it has selected, but fights indeed for the possession of