122 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



I used to have no difficulty during the first days in stealing up 

 to the water-birds so as to get within shooting range. In an 

 incredibly short time, however, they became shy. and then they 

 were by no means inferior to their European relations in 

 prudence and caution." * Sir Joseph Banks, when in New South 

 Wales with Capt. Cook, found most of the birds " extremely 

 shy, so that it was with difficulty that we shot any of them."t 

 The few travellers who have had the great good fortune to 

 visit a little known and unfrequented island have told us what 

 small fear other animals have for their colleague Man, till they 

 have experienced his destructive propensities, and then how 

 quickly reserve, shyness, caution, and fear rapidly become domi- 

 nant factors in a hitherto peaceful existence. 



Of course there are exceptions to this rule, especially among 

 birds. According to Mr. Macpherson, the tameness of the 

 Ortolan Bunting as observed by him in Spain " is almost 

 ludicrous. So little do they apprehend injury, that they will 

 allow visitors to lie on the grass while they forage round for 

 earthworms." + The writer's own experience in the Transvaal 

 is precisely similar with respect to the Pied Babbling-Thrush 

 (Crateropus bicolor). If I lay down at the edge of bush and 

 kept quiet, these birds would not only come close to me, but 

 remain there. Again, Curlews and Golden Pheasants are wild 

 in whatever part of the world they are found, even where the 

 report of a gun has never been heard. § According to Dr. Leith 

 Adams, in Canada "the Purple Swallow has now such a predilec- 

 tion for man's society, on account of the preponderance of insect 

 life which invariably surrounds him wherever he goes, that he has 

 only to construct a small cot with several chambers, and place it 

 on a pole at the door of any solitary shanty in the wild wilderness, 

 when year after year, with the certainty of the seasons, it will be 

 tenanted by these birds in preference to any other situation." || 

 The sound of firearms does not at first universally create terror in 

 birds. D'Albertis relates that, when " fishing with dynamite," 



* ' In the Australian Bush,' p. 53. 



f ' Journal,' edited by Sir J. Hooker, p. 302. 



J ' Koy. Nat. Hist.' vol. iii. p. 414. 



§ Sir S. Baker, ' Wild Beasts and their Ways,' vol. i. p. 180. 



|| 'Field and Forest Kambles,' p. 150. 



