GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS 



determined in part by acquired experience, though founded 

 on a congenital basis. Now this theory of breeding territory 

 raises questions of some importance. It is closely related 

 to the law of battle so firmly established by Darwin, but 

 differs from it in one important particular, namely, that the 

 struggles have their primary origin in an impulse to acquire a 

 territory rather than in one to acquire a female. Concerning 

 the existence of battles in animal life during the period of 

 reproduction there are no two opinions ; nowhere are they 

 more noticeable than in the sexual life of birds, and the facts 

 which will be found in the foregoing pages concerning them 

 add nothing new materially, though they serve to confirm our 

 previous knowledge of the subject, already fairly compre- 

 hensive. It is in regard to the meaning of such struggles that 

 opinion is so divided. Is a female or a territory the primary 

 cause of disturbance? In the life histories of eleven of the 

 more common forms dealt with, will be found evidence, greater 

 or less, of the disposition to secure a territory, and in most 

 cases it will be observed that the male settles in a small area 

 of ground, there awaits a female, and there remains so long as 

 the young require care : and that far from remaining a passive 

 onlooker at any intrusion he actively repels the approach of a 

 stranger. Conflicts also occur even before the appearance of 

 a female upon the scene. Eeference is made to these initial 

 struggles in the histories of the Willow Warbler, Wood 

 Warbler, Blackcap and Marsh Warbler. They demand our 

 careful consideration, since the absence of the female compels 

 us to look elsewhere than in her direction for the primary 

 factor in the dispute. If indeed they were of rare occurrence 

 —a casual struggle here or there— if they bore no trace of 

 persistent striving towards some biological end, and if they 

 were in no way related to the movements of the male in the 

 few acres which he has occupied as a territory, one might 

 perhaps argue that individuals who occasionally exercised just 

 those qualities requisite for obtaining the female when she 

 did at length arrive would by so doing gain some slight 



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