Defining territory as any defended area, warbler
territories in the breeding season are of what
Hinde (1956) called type A ("Large breeding
area within which nesting, courtship, and mating
and most food-seeking usually occur"). He pointed
out that, since the behavioral mechanisms involved
in defending a territory against others of the same
species are the same as those involved in defending
it against other species, this distinction need not be
specified in the definition. From the ecological
point of view, the distinction is of very great importance, however, for, as G. E. Hutchinson pointed out in conversation, if each species has its
density (even locally) limited by a territorial behavior which ignores the other species, then there need be no further differences between the species
to permit them to persist together. A weaker form
of the same process, in which territories were com
pressible but only under pressure of a large population, would still be effective, along with small niche differences, in making each species inhibit its
own population growth more than the others'-the