XVII TAMENESS OF THE BIRDS 425 



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 

 colonised 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 up- 

 land geese at the Fa!klands 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 sportsman 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 would almost perch on his finger ; and that 



