PERU'S WEALTH-PRODUCING BIRDS 



)43 



ive conservation of the resources with 

 which Nature had endowed them. 



GUANO INTRODUCED IN EUROPE 



With the Spanish conquest and the 

 consequent decline of agricultural and 

 industrial life, the guano industry fell 

 away to a condition of insignificance until 

 near the middle of the last century. 

 Humboldt, about 1804, brought samples 

 of Peruvian guano to Europe and advo- 

 cated its commercial importation. 



This great scientist and traveler is 

 usually, but erroneously, given credit for 

 the introduction of guano to Europe. 

 He was indeed responsible for errors of 

 statement that may have been deplorable 

 in effect upon the future conduct of the 

 industry of guano extraction. He at- 

 tributed the guano to birds of land rather 

 than marine habit and he supposed that 

 current deposits were of the slightest im- 

 portance. His statement furnished no 

 incentive to the protection of the useful 

 birds. 



Up to about 1840. however, the beds 

 remained virtually undiscovered to the 

 foreign world. Existing then in practi- 

 cally undiminished quantity, the deposits 

 represented the accumulation of thou- 

 sands of years, lying in thick beds, ex- 

 posed or deeply buried, and waiting only 

 to be shoveled up and loaded into ships 

 for conveyance to the markets of the 

 world. 



After guano was actually introduced 

 to the foreign markets, about 1843, there 

 began an era of extraction on a scale 

 hitherto unknown. Islands were sur- 

 rounded by vessels, fifty or more at a 

 time, and each year saw the disappear- 

 ance of hundreds of thousands of tons. 



DEPOSITS MORE THAN IOO EEET DEEP 



It is stated that more than ten million 

 tons were extracted between 185 1 and 

 1872 from one small group of islands, 

 representing an average annual exporta- 

 tion to the value of twenty or thirty mil- 

 lions of dollars. A single island, it is 

 said, was lowered more than a hundred 

 feet by the removal of its thick crown of 

 guano. 



The possibility of exhaustion of the de- 

 posits was not then contemplated, and no 

 tboaght was given to conserving the birds. 



While private fortunes were being 



gained, the government was making and 

 executing great plans for public improve- 

 ments, and the future of the guano in- 

 dustry was heavily mortgaged to defray 

 the expense. Cries of warning came 

 from the country's creditors, as rumors 

 of probable exhaustion spread abroad and 

 threatened the security of foreign-held 

 bonds. 



On all sides there appeared a mass of 

 literature in the form of notes, pam- 

 phlets, and books that dealt almost as 

 much in invective, charges, and counter- 

 charges as in actual analysis of the situ- 

 ation. A readjustment was finally made 

 in the last decade of the century and the 

 industry has continued both for home 

 agriculture and for export, but in a regu- 

 larly declining condition as regards the 

 export trade. 



THE SEA SUPPLIES THE FOOD FOR THE 

 GUANO-PRODUCING BIRDS 



The innocent agents in the production 

 of the mines of wealth that were the 

 basis of this world-wide commotion were 

 the numerous sea-fowl of the coast, 

 which found their abundant food in the 

 ocean and made their nests upon the 

 islands or points of shore. 



The peculiar climatic conditions pre- 

 viously mentioned offered merely the 

 proper environmental conditions for the 

 preservation of the product. The pri- 

 mary requisite for abundant bird life is 

 the existence of a plentiful food supply, 

 and this is found in the schools of small 

 fish, called anchobetas, that swarm in the 

 Peruvian Current. There "shoals" of 

 fish, acres in extent, are often pursued 

 in the water by bonitoes and other large 

 fish, while beset from the air by thou- 

 sands of birds. 



Billions of pounds of fish must be con- 

 sumed each year by the birds, besides the 

 incalculable quantity devoured by other 

 fishes ; but the fecundity of the ancho- 

 betas is such that their numbers are still 

 maintained. At times great areas of the 

 sea are made red by myriads of small, 

 brightly colored shrimp-like Crustacea ; 

 and these, too, play a part of importance 

 as food for the fishes and birds. 



Not all of the birds are of equal im- 

 portance from the commercial point of 

 view. Indeed, three species virtually 

 support the guano industry at the present 



