VULTURES HIGHLY REGARDED Partly from this the vulture became chiefly regarded by the Romans in their divinations from birds. But even before this the vulture was highly regarded. Hercules, it was said, was always very joyful when a vulture appeared to him upon any occasion. He considered it the least harmful of creatures; not pernicious to corn, fruit tree, or cattle, it never killed or hurt any living thing. It was also thought not to eat other birds, a weighty point in its favor, as Plutarch quotes from Aeschylus, "What bird is clean that preys on fellow bird?" And apparently its deciding claim to esteem was its rarity and infrequency, which gave rise to the opinion in some that it came from another world, an opinion foisted by the soothsayers of the day. Earlier yet, birds played a part in Rome's history. Plutarch warns that some give you mere fables of the origin of Rome, but it is widely current that Remus and Romulus, fathered by Mars, the God of War, were exposed in a remote place to perish. This would have taken place, but for a she-wolf that nursed them, and birds of various sorts that brought little morsels of food which they put into their mouths. Some, however, hold the belief that not birds of various sorts but a woodpecker was the bird that constantly fed and watched the twins, and even in Plutarch's time the Romans still worshiped and honored the woodpecker for this service to the founder of the city. BATTLE OF THE SEXES AND ITS EVOLUTIONARY SIGNIFICANCE [Illustration] I used to think that the battle of the sexes so ably portrayed by James Thurber was artificial, a man- and/or woman-made thing. But recently I've come to see it as old--probably as old as sex itself in the animal world. Under the severe tide, "Secondary Sexual Characters and Ecological Competition," in a paper from the Bird Division of the Chicago Museum, I've outlined the possibility of competition for food, between the sexes, being a factor in evolution, responsible in part for characteristics of structure and traits that distinguish them. In circles that discuss evolution the idea is current that food competition is important between species. It may even be stated as a rule: two species with the same food habits cannot live in the same place. Competition drives one out, unless they have different food habits. These differences seem especially evident when you look at closely related species, and they are accomplished in a variety of ways. A habitat difference is very common. The long-eared owl hunts in the woods--its cousin, the short-eared owl, hunts the meadows; the song sparrow favors the drier shrubbery while its cousin, the swamp sparrow, lives in wetter shrubbery.