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The question then arises: Does all this warfare contribute towards the attainment of reproduction? For three successive seasons I watched the bird life of this meadow, and more especially the Reed-Buntings whose behaviour I was studying at the time. In every respect the meadow was suitable for this bird; there was an abundance of food and numberless situations in which nests could be placed.
But the result would have been the same if, instead of the four additional male Reed-Buntings, four males of other kinds had been allowed to enter the marsh, and we can multiply the number four until we arrive at a point when the means of subsistence would no longer have been adequate for the adults, still less for the young.
There were four pairs of Reed-Buntings in the marsh, and their territories covered the whole of it. But inasmuch as other insectivorous birds were established there also, and found sufficient food to maintain both themselves and their families, it is clear that the area these Reed-Buntings occupied was in excess of that which they would have required if they had been the sole inhabitants.
I shall now give a brief account of the conduct of a male Reed-Bunting which by persistent effort established itself late in the season, and I shall do so because its behaviour tends to confirm much that has been said in the preceding pages. Early in March three male Reed-Buntings occupied a small water meadow overgrown with the common rush, and by the third week all of them were paired.
A Whinchat that occupied some marshy ground was constantly at war with a pair of Reed-Buntings; their territories were adjacent and in some measure overlapped, and the Whinchat drove away either sex indiscriminately, and was not only always the aggressor but seemed to be master of the situation.
Suppose now that the four male Reed-Buntings had each admitted one other male, and that they had secured mates, what would have been the effect upon the whole community? The four additional pairs with their young would have represented twenty individuals, which would have represented a decrease of 8.5 square yards in the space allotted to each individual.
The bird attacks with apparent deliberation as if it were striving to attain some definite end. I recollect an incident which was interesting from this point of view. A pair of Reed-Buntings were disturbed by a Weasel which had approached their nest containing young.
If now, instead of Reed-Buntings in a marsh, I watch Yellow Buntings on a furze-covered common, I find that, establishing themselves early in February, they sing persistently, and in a few weeks are paired.
Anyway, he now picked up a young peewit and made for the nearest dike; then along this, and presently into the water and across to the other side, swimming strongly and well; then along a smaller dike, hugging the reeds as much as possible, and pursued by a running fire of abuse from the sedge and marsh and grasshopper warblers, from wagtails, meadow-pipits, reed-buntings, larks, and all the small-bird population of those parts, till he came to the sea-bank, called by the natives "sea-wall."
Flocks composed of Yellow Buntings, Cirl Buntings, Corn-Buntings, Chaffinches, Greenfinches, etc., can be observed round the farmsteads or upon arable land; small flocks of Reed-Buntings take up their abode on pieces of waste land and remain there until the supply of food is exhausted, deserting their feeding ground only towards evening when they retire to the nearest reed-bed to pass the night; flocks of Hawfinches visit the same holly-trees day after day so long as there is an abundance of berries on the ground beneath; and so on.
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