The picture here given of these defenceless birds, and their still more defenceless young, exposed to the attacks of numerous rapacious enemies, brings vividly before us one of the phases of the unceasing struggle for existence ever going on; but when we consider the slow rate of increase of these birds, and the enormous population they are nevertheless able to maintain, we must be convinced that in the case of the majority of birds which multiply far more rapidly, and yet are never able to attain such numbers, the struggle against their numerous enemies and against the adverse forces of nature must be even more severe or more continuous.
_Struggle for Life between, closely allied Animals and Plants often the most severe._ The struggle we have hitherto been considering has been mainly that between an animal or plant and its direct enemies, whether these enemies are other animals which devour it, or the forces of nature which destroy it.

But there is another kind of struggle often going on at the same time between closely related species, which almost always terminates in the destruction of one of them.

As an example of what is meant, Darwin states that the recent increase of the missel-thrush in parts of Scotland has caused the decrease of the song-thrush.[12] The black rat (Mus rattus) was the common rat of Europe till, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, the large brown rat (Mus decumanus) appeared on the Lower Volga, and thence spread more or less rapidly till it overran all Europe, and generally drove out the black rat, which in most parts is now comparatively rare or quite extinct.

This invading rat has now been carried by commerce all over the world, and in New Zealand has completely extirpated a native rat, which the Maoris allege they brought with them from their home in the Pacific; and in the same country a native fly is being supplanted by the European house-fly.

In Russia the small Asiatic cockroach has driven away a larger native species; and in Australia the imported hive-bee is exterminating the small stingless native bee.
The reason why this kind of struggle goes on is apparent if we consider that the allied species fill nearly the same place in the economy of nature.