Page:Territory in Bird Life by Henry Eliot Howard (London, John Murray edition).djvu/340

Now certain facts are presented to observation which enable us not only to understand the nature of the change that is wrought in the history of the species, but to foreshadow, with no small degree of certainty, the extent of that change. I suppose that it has come within the experience of most of us to observe, at one time or another, the ebb and flow of a given species in a given district. Some favourite haunt is deserted for a year, or for a term of years, and is then revisited; or, if it is always occupied, the number of inhabitants fluctuates—aplenty of pairs in this season, only a few in that. Many intricate relationships, both external and internal, contribute towards this state of affairs. Fluctuation in a downward direction, or temporary extinction, is brought about by changes in the physical world, by changes in the available supply of food, by the increase of enemies, or by adverse climatic conditions; whilst fluctuation in an upward direction, though due indirectly to a combination of circumstances in the external world favourable to the survival of large numbers of individuals, is directly determined by the impulse to seek isolation. As individuals of different species establish themselves, and form kingdoms and lesser kingdoms, we can watch the gradual quickening into life of moorland and forest and we can observe the manner in which it all comes to pass. Males that for weeks or months have lived in society, drifting from locality to locality according to the abundance of food or its