Page:Territory in Bird Life by Henry Eliot Howard (London, John Murray edition).djvu/156

the attitude, also significant, which it adopted towards the females; for I take it that, apart from the question of territory, the explanation of its intrusion must be sought in the necessity for securing a mate—that it was attracted • by the presence of the females, and that the proximate end of its behaviour was the possession of one of them. But if there is one thing that emerges from the facts more clearly than another it is that the course of its behaviour was in no way influenced by the presence or absence of either of the females. My reasons for saying so are the following: in the first place, it made no attempt to pursue or to thrust its attention upon either one or the other of them; secondly, it even went so far as to attack and drive them away when they approached too closely; and in the third place, when an unpaired female did at length appear, it adopted a different attitude and forthwith paired. And bearing in mind that these two females had already been with their respective mates for some considerable time, and that there was reason to believe that coition had actually taken place, is it likely that any counter-attraction would have proved successful in tempting either of them away from its mate, or probable, if they were the sole attraction, that the intruding male would have been so persistent in remaining? How very much simpler it is to fit the pieces together, if for the time being we ignore the female and fix our attention upon the territory. Each item of behaviour then falls into its proper place, and the fighting which