292 -^^^ Ornithological Retros-pect. [zoE 



San Bruno, They were feeding near the roadside, indifferent to the 

 presence of all persons, and in order to see how close he could ap- 

 proach he walked directly towards them. When within five or six 

 yards of the nearest ones they stretched up their necks and walked 

 away like domestic geese; by making demonstration with his arms 

 they were frightened and took wing, flying but a short distance. 

 They seemed to have no idea that they would be harmed, and 

 feared man no more than they did the cattle in the fields. The 

 tameness of the wild geese was more remarkable than of any other 

 .birds, but it must be understood that in those days they were but 

 little hunted and probably none had ever heard the report of a 

 gun and few had seen men. This seems the most plausible ac- 

 counting for the stupid tameness of the geese, forty years ago. 

 What the wild goose is to-day on the open plains of the large in- 

 terior valleys of California those who have hunted them know. By 

 1853 the geese had become wilder and usually flew before one 

 could get within shotgun range, if on foot, but in an open buggy 

 or upon horseback there was no difficulty. There was a very marked 

 contrast between the stupidly tame geese after their arrival in the 

 fall and the same more watchful and shy birds before the departure 

 in spring of the years 1852 and 1853. This is an important fact, 

 showing not only the change in the instinct occurring within three 

 years, but the more remarkable change, or it may be called the re- 

 vival of the instinct of fear, which was effected within a few months; 

 to this point I will refer again. 



The island of Guadalupe, off the coast of Lower California, offers 

 an interesting example of the unsuspiciousness of the local species 

 in very marked contrast to the extreme shyness of the straggling 

 avifauna. Yet in 1885-6, while making an enforced stay upon the 

 island, I was enabled to very plainly detect the changes which 

 had occurred within the decade since Dr. Palmer first explored it 

 ornithologically.* In 1875 the Guadalupe junco and house finch 

 could be taken with a butterfly net, but not when I was there ten 

 years later. I found the rock wren the tamest of all the resident 

 birds; they would approach within a few feet of me while keeping 

 motionless, and once one hopped upon my shoe. I was told that 

 formerly thejuncos and house finches sometimes alighted upon a 



Bull. Cal. Acad, ii, 6, 269. 



