CHAPTER VIII. 

 The Recluse. 



There are regions where the presence of man is a 

 thing so totally out of experience, that the wild 

 animals manifest no sort of dread of him when he 

 does by accident intrude on their solitude. In the 

 Galapagos Islands, perhaps the most singular 

 land in the world, all the animals appear quite 

 devoid of the fear of man. Cowley, in 108-1, ob- 

 served that the doves there "were so tame that 

 they would often alight on our hats and arms, so 

 as that we could take them alive." Darwin saw 

 a boy sitting by a well with a switch, with which 

 he killed the doves and finches as they came to 

 drink. He had already obtained a heap of them 

 for his dinner, and he said he had been constantly 

 in the habit of doing this. The naturalist hims?lf 

 says that a mocking-bird alighted on the edge of 

 a pitcher which he held in his hand, and began 

 quietly to sip the water ;— that a gun is superflu- 

 ous, for with the muzzle he actually pushed a 

 hawk off the branch of a tree: in fact, all the 

 birds of the islands will allow themselves to be 

 killed with a switch, or even to be caught in a 

 hat. 



Other naturalists have noticed the extreme 

 tameness of many kinds of birds at the Falkland 

 Islands; where, though they take precautions 

 against the attacks of foxes, they appear to have 

 no dread of man. Formerly they were more con- 

 fiding than at present. When the Isle of Bourbon 

 was discovered, all the birds, except the flamingo 

 187 



