The Migration of BirdsCoward, T. A. (Thomas Alfred)
Science
The Migration of Birds
Coward, T. A. (Thomas Alfred)
Birds -- Migration
Mr Taverner, arguing on these lines (51), shows that competition
would be originated in areas containing the earliest breeders, and be
severest in the most productive districts. Weaker and later breeders
would be driven out or prevented from colonizing by the stronger and
earlier species, and the evicted ones would encroach on others, forcing
them in turn to trespass on a wider circle of species. He then argues
how the gradual recession of the glacial ice would increase the possible
northward breeding area, and cause longer migration, and that this
migration would delay breeding and conversely delayed breeding would
assist the evolution of migration.
But the lengthening of the journey might surely be occasioned in
another way, and the evolution of migration assisted apart from any
glacial influences. Each successive increase of the length of the
journey taken by the stronger and more go-ahead individuals, leading
them in advance of the bulk of southward moving and competing birds,
would be a distinct advantage to the individual and consequently to the
species. The pioneer would arrive, like the slower movers, in a land
already peopled with an avian population, but it would not have its own
fellows to add to the stress of competition; it would be ahead of the
greatest struggle. So the fittest would mould for the species the most
suitable journey both in distance and route, and the laggards would
gradually fall out of the competition.
Dr Wallace, without destroying these arguments, has shown that the
survival of the fittest has a powerful influence. Those birds which
do not leave the breeding area at the proper season will suffer and
ultimately become extinct, and the same will happen to those which fail
to leave the winter quarters when it would be a distinct advantage to
the species to move into lands better suited for reproduction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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