ring
mates is lacking--can it be denied that the complexity of the strife
makes against the view that the possession of a female is the proximate
end for which the males are fighting?

We started with the most simple aspect of the whole problem, the
fighting of two males in the presence of one female--the aspect upon
which attention has usually been fixed. And if it remained at that, if
observation failed to disclose any further development in the situation,
then there would be no need to probe the matter deeper, there would be
no reason to doubt the assertion that the quarrel had direct reference
to the female. But assuredly no one can ponder over the diversity of
battle and still believe that the possession of a mate furnishes an
adequate solution of the mystery. Clearly such an hypothesis cannot
cover all the known facts; there are conflicts between separate pairs,
and there are conflicts between males when females are known to be
absent and when their mates are even engaged in the work of
incubation--these cannot be due to an impulse in a member of one sex to
gain or keep possession of one of the other sex. So that taking all
these facts into consideration, we are justified, I think, in hesitating
to accept this view, and must look elsewhere for the real condition
under which the pugnacious nature of the male is rendered susceptible to
appropriate stimulation.

What then is the meaning of all this warfare? The process of
reproduction is a complex one, built up of a number of different parts
forming one inter-related whole; it is not merely a question of
"battle," or of "territory," or of "song," or of "emotional
manifestation," but of all these together. The fighting is thus one link
in a chain of events whose end is the attainment of reproduction; it is
a relationship in an inter-related process, and to speak of it as being
even directly related to the territory is scarcely sufficient, for it is
intimately associated with the disposition which is manifested in the
isolation of the male from its companions, and forms therewith an
_imperium in imperio_ from which our concept of breeding territory is
taken. But let me say at once that it is no easy matter to prove this,
for since so many modes of behaviour, which can be interpreted as
lending support to this view, are likewise interpretable on the view
that the presence of a female is a necessary condition of the fighting,
it is difficult to find just the sort of