THE NEUTRAL GROUND 103 



leave this ground, as presently they will, and 

 return to their territories in the surrounding 

 neighbourhood, and that there each one will 

 fight if necessary to preserve its acre from 

 intrusion. 



It would seem, then, from this that the 

 fighting must bear some relation to the 

 particular area of ground in which it occurs ; 

 and unless it can be shown that there is some 

 other factor in the external environment of 

 the male, that is the direction in which we 

 must look for the condition under which the 

 instinct is rendered susceptible. One's thoughts 

 turn, of course, to the female, but she too passes 

 backwards and forwards between the territories 

 and the neutral ground, and if her presence 

 were really a conditio sine qua non of the strife, 

 one would like to know why, when she leaves 

 those territories and joins the flock and the 

 males do likewise, similar conflicts should not 

 prevail there also. 



Other species have their neutral ground, but 

 the environment seldom affords such facilities 

 for observation as does that of the Lapwing. 

 Even though the Moor-Hens, who are so 

 conspicuously intolerant upon the pool, do feed 

 together amicably upon the meadows adjoining ; 

 and the Chaffinch that is so pugnacious in the 

 morning, does seek out the flock later in the 

 day ; yet their conditions of existence prevent 

 our obtaining a panoramic view of the whole 

 proceeding, and we have to study each scene 

 separately before discovering that the relation - 



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