Studies of fighting in chaffinches (4) appetitive and consummatory behaviour

Abstract

Summaryo

1. 1.

   There is no evidence that captive Chaffinches in winter seek fights when meeting their kind for the first time.

2. 2.

   Birds in captive flocks may seek fights:wild birds do not.

3. 3.

   It is concluded that Chaffinches have noinnate, spontaneous appetitive behaviour for fighting in winter. When they seek fights, it can be related either to an aggressive mood aroused by external stimuli in the immediate past, or to a learned association between fighting and other activities.

4. 4.

   There is no evidence that Chaffinches haveseveral “sub-instincts” for winter fighting, each “subordinated to another major instinct.” The association with other activities is incidental, arising because they bring birds into proximity (see text for full definition), except when a learned association develops.

5. 5.

   Aggression in so-called “frustrating” situationsis often caused by the increased frequency of external stimuli for aggression. The hypothesis that all aggression is caused by frustration is clearly unfounded.

6. 6.

   In Chaffinches, Yellow Buntings and someother animals, tendencies to other activities than fighting readily have an effect on fighting success by suppressing fear, not by increasing aggressiveness.

7. 7.

   Innate searching for fights in the territorialbehaviour of birds is not proved. It occurs in Chaffinches in recently-contested areas, but otherwise, general patrolling cannot yet be certainly identified as searching for fights. If it proves to be so, it may be learned rather than innate, as in winter.

8. 8.

   The ways are reviewed by which fighting is avoided in potential aggressive situations—i.e. in the presence of potential external stimuli for fighting.

9. 9.

   Fighting generally has a consummatory situation, the achievement by a great variety of acts of a certain area of free space, centred on the individual or, in territorial behaviour, on external objects.

10. 10.

    Complete agreement is reached with Wallace Craig's conclusion that “fighting is not sought for its own sake” but “is resorted to as a means of defending the agent's interests.”