Types of Hostile Display

AONG the commonest social behavior patterns in most birds are a great variety of hostile activities, i.e. behavior patterns produced by attack and/or escape motivation.(The terms "motivation" and "drive" are used interchangeably throughout this paper, in a very broad descriptive sense, as "the complex of internal and external states and stimuli usually or normally leading to a given behavior.")Hostile activities include attack and escape movements of very different intensities, plus a large number of more complex and obviously ambivalent reactions.The most widespread, frequent, and conspicuous of these complex reactions are the "ritualized" patterns or displays; patterns that have become standardized and specialized as social signals or releasers.Many hostile displays have been described at length in recent