1S35.] TAMENESS OF THE BIRDS. 



399 



thrush alighted on the edge of a pitcher, made of the shell of 

 a tortoise, which I held in my hand, and began very quietly to 

 sip the water ; it allowed me to lift it from the ground whilst 

 seated on the vessel : I often tried, and very nearly succeeded, in 

 catching these birds by their legs. Formerly the birds appeal to 

 have been even tamer than at present. Cowley (in the year 1684^ 

 says that the " Turtle-doves were so tame, that they would often 

 a ight upon our hats and arms, so as that we could take them 

 ahve : they not fearing man, until such time as some of our com- 

 pany did fire at them, whereby they were rendered more shy " 

 Dampier also, in the same year, says that a man in a morning's 

 walk might kill SIX or seven dozen of these doves. At present, 

 although certainly very tame, tJiey do not alight on people's 

 arms nor do they sufl^er themselves to be killed in such lar-e 

 numbers. It is surprising that they have not become wilder; 

 for these islands during the last hundred and fifty years have 

 been frequently visited by bucaniers and whalers ; and the sailors, 

 wandering through the woods in search of tortoises, always take 

 cruel delight in knocking down the little birds 



These birds, although now still more persecuted, do not readily 

 become wild: in Charles Island, which had then been colonized 

 about SIX years, I saw a boy sitting by a well with a switch in his 

 hand wi h which he killed the doves and finches as they came to 

 drink. He had already procured a little heap of them for his 

 dinner; and he said that he had constantly been in the habit of 

 waiting by this well for the same purpose. It would appear that 

 the birds of tins archipelago, not having as yet learnt that man is 

 a more dangerous animal than the tortoise or the Amblyrhynchus 

 disregard him, in tiie same manner as in England shy birds, such 

 as magpies disregard the cows and horses grazing in our fields. 

 ^ Ihe Falkland Islands ofl^er a second instance of birds with a 

 similar disposition. The extraordinary tameness of the little 

 Opetiorhynchus has been remarked by Pernety, Lesson, and other 

 voyagers. It is not, however, peculiar to that bird ; the Poly- 

 borus, snipe, upland and lowland goose, thrush, bunting, and 

 even some true hawks, are all more or less tame. As the birds 

 are so tame there, where foxes, hawks, and owls occur, we may 

 infer that the absence ot all rapacious animals at the Galapa-os 

 ts not the cause of their tameness here. The upland gee^ at 

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