Page:The British Warblers A History with Problems of Their Lives - 5 of 9.djvu/76

 more serious side of life, each in its own particular way; and there is no reason to suppose that this trait is absent from bird life. But it is by no means probable that the petty struggles, rapid pursuits, or harsh scoldiugs, which are of common occurrence in the life of this species, can all be referred to this cause, or that they have one and the same origin. On the one hand we have scolding parties, very similar to those we find in the life-history of the Sedge Warbler. As many as six individuals, apparently belonging to both sexes, collect in a small area, some at the tops of the reeds and some at the bottom, and produce a considerable commotion by uttering their harsh scolding note. On the other we frequently find a number of individuals pursuing one another, darting in and out of the reeds, momentarily appearing as they fly above the tops, but rapidly disappearing again from view, pecking at and fluttering with each other in the air or amongst the reeds when the unusual shaking of the stems discloses their exact position; and yet again we find two or more close together bursting into song and uttering their notes more hurriedly and more excitedly than under ordinary conditions.

As already mentioned, the date of arrival of different individuals varies considerably. The case may be remembered of the two males which appeared within a few days of one another; the one secured a mate only upon the day on which its neighbour's young were preparing to leave the nest. Thus it will be seen that in the same reed bed and at the same time, reproduction may exist in all its different stages. In one territory a male may be mating, in another a pair may be busy with incubation, while in another the young may be on the point of leaving the nest. So that we have in this fact a possible explanation of much of the excitable behaviour of different individuals; for the question of territory is not comparatively absent, as it would be if the young of all the different pairs were ready to leave the nest, but, rather, a prominent cause of strife even up to