twelve years ago, is now buried 10 feet or more below the surface of the sand. The area that was once tidal, but is now a brackish lake, is fed by mountain streams, and as the fresh water predominates, so in course of time will it become fringed with vegetation; and instead of the flocks of Curlew, Dunlin, and other waders that, at low water, resorted there to feed, Coots will fight with one another for the possession of territories, and the Wild Duck will teach her young to seek their food. In whatever direction we turn, we find that many breeding grounds are subject to incessant change. Ancient haunts disappear, new ones come into being, a change which makes life impossible for this bird, as likely as not benefits that one, and so on. There is no stability. Hence in any given district each recurring season there must needs be a large number of individuals which are obliged to seek new stations, and if there were no control over their distribution, if each one were free to establish itself wherever it chanced to alight, this locality might be overcrowded and that one deserted; and, bearing in mind how many species there are that require similar conditions of existence, we can infer that the successful attainment of reproduction would become impossible for many of those individuals so long as each species was indifferent to the presence of the others. On the other hand, if there were no control over the range of the intolerance, the smaller bird would have no chance in competition with the larger, and it is doubtful whether the larger would gain an advantage commensurate with the energy it would expend in ridding its area of the smaller. I have described battles in which the opponents were only distantly related; for instance, the Moor-Hen will attack almost any bird--Partridge, Lapwing, or Starling--that approaches its territory even temporarily. Nevertheless the antagonism between kindred forms is more prevalent, and, as a rule, characterised by more persistent effort; and thus it seems as if the susceptibility of the fighting instinct has its limitations, the degree of the responsiveness being dependent upon the affinity of the opponents.