400 GALAPAGOS ARCHIPELAGO. [chap. xvii. 



the Falklands show, by the precaution they take in building on 

 the islets, that they are aware of their danger from the foxes ; 

 but they are not by this rendered wild towards man. This tame- 

 ness of the birds, especially of the waterfowl, is strongly con- 

 trasted with the habits of the same species in Tierra del Fuego, 

 where for ages past they have been persecuted by the wild inha- 

 bitants. In the Falklands, the sportsman may sometimes kill 

 more of the upland geese in one day than he can carry home ; 

 whereas in Tierra del Fuego, it is nearly as difficult to kill one, 

 as it is in England to shoot the common wild goose. 



In the time of Pernety (1763), all the birds there appear to 

 have been much tamer than at present ; he states that the Ope- 

 tiorhynchus would almost perch on his finger ; and that with a 

 wand he killed ten in half an hour. At that period the birds 

 must have been about as tame, as they now are at the Galapagos. 

 They appear to have learnt caution more slowly at these latter 

 islands than at the Falklands, where they have had proportionate 

 means of experience ; for besides frequent visits from vessels, 

 those islands have been at intervals colonized during the entire 

 period. Even formerly, when all the birds were so tame, it was 

 impossible by Pernety's account to kill the black-necked swan 

 a bird of passage, which probably brought with it the wisdom 

 learnt in foreign countries. 



I may add that, according to Du Bois, all the birds at Bour- 

 bon in 1571-72, with the exception of the flamingoes and geese, 

 were so extremely tame, that they could be caught by the hand, 

 or killed in any number with a stick. Again, at Tristan d'A- 

 cunha in the Atlantic, Carmichael* states that the only two 

 land-birds, a thrush and a bunting, were " so tame as to suffer 

 themselves to be caught with a hand-net." From these several 

 facts we may, I think, conclude, first, that the wildness of birds 



* Linn. Trans., vol. xii. p. 496. The most anomalous fact on this sub- 

 ject which I have met with, is the wildness of the small birds in the Arctic 

 parts of North America (as described by Richardson, Fauna Bor., vol. ii. 

 p. 332), where they are said never to be persecuted. This case is the more 

 strange, because it is asserted that some of the same species in their winter- 

 quarters in the United States are tame. There is much, as Dr. Richardson 

 well remarks, utterly inexplicable connected with the different degrees of 

 shyness and care with which birds conceal their nests. How strange it is 

 that the English wood-pigeon, generally so wild a bird, should very fre- 

 quently rear its young in shrubberies close to houses ! 



