Page:The Migration of Birds - Thomas A Coward - 1912.pdf/47

Rh be occasioned in another way, and the evolution of migration assisted apart from any glacial influences. Each successive increase of the length of the journey taken by the stronger and more go—ahead individuals, leading them in advance of the bulk of southward moving and competing birds, would be a distinct advantage to the individual and consequently to the species. The pioneer would arrive, like the slower movers, in a land already peopled with an avian population, but it would not have its own fellows to add to the stress of competition; it would be ahead of the greatest struggle. So the fittest would mould for the species the most suitable journey both in distance and mute, and the laggards would gradually fall out of the competition.

Dr Wallace, without destroying these arguments, has shown that the survival of the fittest has a powerful influence. Those birds which do not leave the breeding area at the proper season will suffer and ultimately become extinct, and the same will happen to those which fail to leave the winter quarters when it would be a distinct advantage to the species to move into lands better suited for reproduction.

It has been put forward as a serious objection to many arguments that migration, instead of being advantageous to birds, is a danger to the