1835.] TAMENESS OF THE BIRDS. 191 



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, they do not alight on people's arms, nor do they 

 suffer themselves to be killed in such large 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, with 

 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 this archipelago, not 

 having as yet learnt that man is a more dangerous animal than the 

 tortoise or the Amblyrhynchus, disregard him, in the same manner as 

 in England shy birds, such as magpies, disregard the cows and horses 

 grazing in our fields. 



The Falkland Islands offer 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 Polyborus, 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 of all rapacious animals 

 at the Galapagos, is not the cause of their tameness here. The upland 

 geese at 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 tameness of the 

 birds, especially of the waterfowl, is strongly contrasted with the habits 

 of the same species in Tierra del Fuego, where for ages past they have 

 been persecuted by the wild inhabitants. In the Falklands, the sports- 

 man 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 Opetiorhynchus wouiu 

 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 Bourbon in 



