Page:Territory in Bird Life by Henry Eliot Howard (London, John Murray edition).djvu/64

42 may meet them in mid-ocean and add to the perils of their journey; or the temperature of the previous weeks may have been sufficiently low to arrest the development of insect life—and yet males are annually exposed to these risks in hurrying to their breeding grounds. For what purpose? The answer will -largely depend upon the way in which we regard those few acres wherein a resting place is ultimately found. For myself. I believe that they are of importance, inasmuch as the securing of a place suitable for the rearing of offspring is a primary condition of success in the attainment of reproduction; and if this be so, it is evident that the interests of the race will be better served by the males making good this first step before the females are ready to pair, otherwise they might oscillate between two modes of behaviour, created by the premature functioning of conflicting impulses.

The different steps in the process seem to follow one another in ordered sequence. The male inherits a disposition—which for us, of course, has prospective meaning—to seek the appropriate breeding ground and there to establish itself; and as early a functioning of this disposition as possible, consonant with the conditions of existence in the external environment, may have been evolved for the following reasons—firstly, the earlier individuals will meet with less interference wherever they may settle, every locality will be open to them, every acre free, their only need being that