174 GALAFAGOrf AKC'UIPELAGU. 



by this well for the same purpose. It would ap- 

 pear that the birds of this archipelago, not having 

 as yet learned 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 extraordi- 

 nary 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 of all rapacious animals at the 

 Gralapagos 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 clanger from the foxes, but 

 they are not, by this, rendered wild towards man. 

 This tameness of the birds, especially of tlie water- 

 fowl, 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 inhab- 

 itants. In the Falklands, the sportsman may some- 

 times 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 would almost 

 perch on his finger, and that with a wand he killed 

 ten in half an hour. At that period tlie birds must 

 have been about as tame as they now are at the 



