The general anatomical and physiological attributes of birds enable them to develop more diverse and spectacular migratory behavior than any other group of animals. Their potential for long sustained flights is of primary importance in pre-adapting birds to successful migrations. Migration has long since become a definite hereditary habit of many species of birds that recurs in annual cycles, evidently because of physiological changes which prompt a search for an environment suitable for reproduction and survival. Like the bird's other habits its migratory behavior is just as characteristic as the color of its plumage and, like it, evolved through natural selection because it was advantageous for the survival of the population. Its origin has been thought by some to be a mystery locked in past ages, but by study of the history of how birds came to occupy their present ranges, information becomes available which suggests theories that may be developed and explored. Two that are commonly mentioned are termed the "Northern Ancestral Home Theory" and the "Southern Ancestral Home Theory." According to the former of these hypotheses, in earlier ages when conditions of climate, food, and habitat were favorable for existence of birds throughout the year much further north than is the case today, many species remained in these northern latitudes as permanent residents. Today, such conditions are found only in more southern regions where migrations are much shorter or nonexistent. Gradually, however, in the Northern Hemisphere the glacial ice fields advanced southward, causing a southward movement of conditions favorable to northern birds, until finally all bird life was confined to southern latitudes. As the ages passed, the ice cap gradually retreated, and each spring the birds whose ancestral home had been in the North moved in again to fill newly opened breeding habitat only to be driven south again at the approach of winter. As the size of the ice-covered area diminished, the journeys to the summer breeding areas became even longer until eventually the climatic conditions of the present age became established, and with them, present patterns of the annual advance and retreat we call migration. The opposing theory is simpler in some respects and supposes the ancestral home of Northern Hemisphere migratory birds was in the Tropics. As all bird life tends to overpopulation, there was a constant effort of young individuals to pioneer and seek breeding grounds where competition was less severe. Species better adapted to more northern latitudes moved in that direction for nesting but were kept in check by the glacial ice and forced to return southward with the recurrence of winter conditions. Gradually, as the ice retreated, vast areas of virgin country became successively suitable for summer occupancy, but the winter habitat in the South remained the home to which the birds returned after the nesting season.