DISCOVERY 



135 



conditions of peace, security, and freedom in which 

 progress can best take place." 



The authors go on to compare Government and people 

 to a shepherd and his flock, with the Executive as the 

 sheep-dog. " Present-day opinion," they say, " regards 

 sheep, shepherd, and dog as having very nearly the same 

 level of intelligence, and as engaging in an agreeable 

 co-operation in the search for new pastures. But it is 

 the sheep themselves who do most of tlie discovery, 

 while the special task of the shepherd and his dog is to 

 keep order, to take care of the lambs, and to help the 

 sheep that have grown old or infirm. ... A cynic would 

 perhaps be incUned to add that at the present time the 

 shepherd is actively engaged in fleecing the flock." 



Let us hope that a new and golden fleece may grow 

 before long. 



Territory in Bird Lije. By H. Eliot How.xkd. (John 

 Murray, 21s.) 



Mr. Howard deserves our gratitude, for he has brought 

 to light a :iew factor in the life of birds. His conception 

 of "territory" and the part it plays in the avian life- 

 cycle was already outlined in his remarkable monograph 

 on the British Warblers. That, however, was costly 

 and not readily accessible ; and we are glad that he has 

 devoted a separate work to a consideration of the idea 

 and of its general bearings. 



It is refreshing to find field-work leading to conclusions 

 of such wide application. The average ornithologist had 

 begun to think that there was nothing new to be learned 

 from British ornithology at least — nothing but an 

 amplification of our old knowledge. In reality, the 

 most valuable results he waiting for those who have the 

 interest and the patience. The reviewer remembers 

 with what surprise he discovered that the courtship 

 habits of such a common species as the Redshank were 

 scarcely known, and the wonderful pleasure that it was 

 to dig up new facts and new general ideas from the 

 nuptial activities of the Crested Grebe. 



The man who is content to make records or to collect 

 skins and eggs will, unless he spend years of liis life in 

 a systematic analysis of his own and others' facts, not 

 get anything from his labours — save the very real 

 pleasure of making the observations. ' But he who 

 takes the trouble to think out new problems and new 

 lines of attack upon the old will have the same pleasure, 

 and in addition the joy of intellectual discovery. It is 

 the man who is willing to build an observation post in 

 a rookery, to make a detailed psychological study of 

 any common bird, to observe the whole sexual cycle of 

 a species — always with some general idea to guide him 

 — who is likely to achieve results. 



As the field studies of Bates introduced us to a new 

 idea — of JVIimicry in butterflies — so do these of Howard 

 to a new idea — of Territory. As a result of seasons of 

 patient watching among English fields and woods, he 

 has arrived at the conclusion that practically all our 

 birds, when the mating season comes round, stake out 



a territory for themselves, and that this territory is in 

 most instances the pivot on which their se.xual life turns. 

 Usually it is the male who annexes the territory, spending 

 all or most of liis time in a given, Uniited area which he 

 defends from other males ; and this annexation occurs 

 long before he appears to manifest any interest whatever 

 in the females. We find that tliis occupation of territory 

 takes place in essentially the same way in migratory and 

 non-migratory forms, and in forms belonging to the 

 most widely different groups. In the Warblers, the 

 males come over from their winter-quarters a week or 

 more before the females. They then occupy a definite 

 area, fighting, if need be, for its possession, and spend 

 almost the whole of their time in singing. When the 

 females arrive, there is no courtship in the ordinary 

 sense ; on the contrary, the males seem to be almost 

 oblivious of their future mates, and any fighting there 

 may be is between females, for the possession of the 

 occupied territory ! Only after the territory is thus 

 staked out, and occupied by a pair of birds, do the 

 activities which are usually summed up as " courtsliip " 

 — a very poor term in this case — begin, the male assuming 

 the most extravagant attitudes and performing actions 

 obviously directed at the female. 



In non-migratory passerine birds like the unrelated 

 Fringillidae, the same sort of procedure is gone through. 

 Yellow Buntings, for instance, during the winter collect 

 in flocks on the stubbles. As spring begins, male birds 

 will detach themselves from the flock for a short period 

 each day, and repair to a particular stretch of hedgerow,- 

 in which they will spend most of their time on a particular 

 tree, singing. As the season advances, they will spend 

 less and less time with the flock, more and more in the 

 territor5^ in ever greater activity of singing — until at 

 length the flock has disappeared, since the females finally 

 leave it too, and search for a mate and a home, as in the 

 Warblers. 



Even in quite a different order of birds the behaviour 

 is similar. Peewits have their territories round the 

 nest, staked out in just the same way by the males in 

 early spring, some time before any sexual activity 

 proper is in evidence at all. 



In fact, Mr. Howard claims that territory in some 

 form or other plays a part in the life of all birds, and 

 substantiates his claim for the most unlikely forms — 

 promiscuously-mating species like the Cuckoo, gregarious 

 cliff-dwellers like the Guillemot, and even (though here, 

 it must be confessed, with considerable limitations) 

 polygamists like the Blackcock or Ruff. Not only does 

 he make this claim, but I tliink it must be allowed that 

 he substantiates it. 



Territory is most important of all in forms, like the 

 Warblers, where the young are hatched naked, and 

 cannot be left long uncovered without risk of dangerous 

 chilling. Here the size of the territory is regulated 

 according to the food-supply and the ability of the 

 parents to find it, and the pair spend the whole of the 

 breeding-season within its confines. A similar state of 

 affairs holds for Kingfishers, which divide up their rivers 

 into sections. The Crested Grebes, on the other hand. 



