76 WHAT MR. DARWIN SAW. 



GALAPAGOS ISLANDS. 



of the nest as soon as we had disturbed the parent birds. 

 Sir W. Symonds, one of the few persons who have landed 



THE NODDY. 



here, informs me that he saw the crabs dragging even the 

 young birds out of their nests and devouring them. 



Extreme tameness is common to all the land-birds in the 

 Galapagos Islands, namely, to the mocking - thrushes, the 

 finches, wrens, tyrant fly-catchers, the dove, and carrion -buz- 

 zard. All of them often approached sufficiently near to be 

 killed with a switch, and sometimes, as I myself tried, with 

 a cap or hat. A gun is here almost superfluous; for with 

 the muzzle I pushed a hawk off the branch of a tree. One 

 day, while lying down, a mocking- thrush alighted on the 

 edge of a pitcher, made of the shell of a tortoise, which I 



