Page:Territory in Bird Life by Henry Eliot Howard (London, John Murray edition).djvu/339

Rh successfully accomplished providing that success is attained at every stage, the probability is that, of the impulses concerned, one is neither more powerful nor less powerful than another. So that we have two impulses operating at different seasons and guiding the behaviour into widely divergent channels. But though the proximate end to which the behaviour is directed is apparently different, there are not two biological ends in view, but one—the attainment of reproduction; and the changes that we witness are not contrary but complementary, and their prospective value lies in the circumstance that they contribute towards the preservation of the race.

If, then, every male is driven by inherited impulse to seek the appropriate breeding ground each recurring season; if, having arrived there, it is driven to seek a position of its own; if, in order to secure isolation it is obliged to attack other males or to ward off the attacks of intruders; if, in short, success can only be attained providing that the inherited nature is so adjusted that the bird can accomplish all that is here demanded—what will be the general result? That the individual will rear its offspring in safety and that they will inherit the peculiarities of their parents, enabling them, in their turn, to procreate their kind; all this will certainly follow. We are not concerned, however, at the moment, with the direct effect upon the individual, but with the consequences that will accrue to the species as a whole.