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the situation and left. The will to fight was clearly lacking, yet their presence was a source of annoyance to the owners of the territories. A short time previously a female had accompanied one of the males and was at that time somewhere in the vicinity, but beyond this there was no evidence to show that either of them were paired, and even if the presence of the female were the reason of the pugnacity of the one, it could not well account for that of the other. The neutral ground does not always happen to be so close at hand as in the case of the meadow referred to. Sometimes the birds will resort to a particular field, attracted probably by a plentiful supply of food, and here they collect and behave as they do during the winter, running this way and that as the fancy takes them, meeting together by accident at one moment, parting at another, according to the direction in which they happen to wander. Of animosity there is little sign; the season might be the middle of winter instead of the middle of March for all the indication there is of sexual development, and yet one knows that they will behave differently when they leave this ground, as presently they will, and return to their territories in the surrounding neighbourhood, and that there each one will fight if necessary to preserve its acre from intrusion. It would seem, then, from this that the fighting must bear some relation to the particular area of ground in which it occurs; and unless it can be shown that there is some other factor in the external environment of the male, that is the direction in which we must look for the condition under which the instinct is rendered susceptible. One's thoughts turn, of course, to the female, but she too passes backwards and forwards between the territories and the neutral ground, and if her presence were really a _conditio sine qua non_ of the strife, one would like to know why, when she leaves those territories and joins the flock and the males do likewise, similar conflicts should not prevail there also. Other species have their neutral ground, but the environment seldom affords such facilities for observation as does that of the Lapwing. Even though the Moor-Hens, who are so conspicuously intolerant upon the pool, _do_ feed together amicably upon the meadows adjoining; and the Chaffinch that is so pugnacious in the morning, _does_ seek out the flock later in the day; yet their conditions of existence prevent our
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